


When Parents Are Shippers

by SophieRipley



Series: Sweetly United [1]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Making Love, Matchmaking, Meeting the Parents, Oral Sex, Sexuality, Vaginal Sex, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-08-13 07:22:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7967650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieRipley/pseuds/SophieRipley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Judy's parents refuse to believe she and Nick Wilde are not dating, she decides it's best to bring Nick to Bunnyburrow to talk some sense into them.  [explicit content in final chapter]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Definitely Not Dating

Nick Wilde had been terrified when he and Judy left the precinct that morning.  As suave and smooth as he was, an auditorium full of children intimidated him more than he had been willing to admit.  Judy knew this because he wasn’t joking much on the way to the school at which they’d been asked to speak.  Judy also knew, however, that as concerned as Nick was he had nothing to worry about.  Once he started talking he’d be fine.

Her prediction was nothing if not correct.  They’d been asked to do a presentation to some middle school students at a local school; as something of a minor celebrity, Judy had already done talks like these a couple times.  She was comfortable on the stage.  Nick nearly had to be dragged onstage he was so nervous, but the moment his mouth opened everything changed.  They had a prewritten progression of topics, all including basic public safety, followed by a subtle suggestion for the students to consider a career at the ZPD later in life.  After Nick’s first couple lines, he really got into it and soon had the whole auditorium—adults and all—figuratively eating out of his paw. 

At the end, there was a questions-and-answers period.  At first it was the usual questions to both of them:  “Have you shot anyone,” “is it dangerous,” and “do you live at the police station.”  Then there were the ones they always asked Judy:  “Are there other bunny cops?”  “Do you get a special chair for your desk?”  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get hurt?”

But finally, as Judy expected, a question was asked to Nick personally.  It was an arctic fox identifying himself as Jason, and he asked Nick, “why did you want to be a cop when people don’t trust foxes?”

It was very insightful, Judy had to admit, for a middle school student.  She was prepared to step in, but she needn’t have bothered.  Nick didn’t even hesitate.  His ears pricked up, his grin widened, and he clasped his paws in front of himself.

“You know, Jason,” said Nick brightly, “that’s actually a question nobody has ever had the guts to ask me.  Thanks for that.  Let’s be honest, you’re right.  Very few trust foxes, and that’s _why_ I wanted to show people how good I could be.  When I was a kit, I even joined the Junior Ranger Scouts.”  The auditorium was silent as he turned and paced along the stage, gesticulating as he went.  “As I grew up, I definitely realized people saw me as shady and dishonest, and I can admit…it got to me.  I spent a lot of years thinking that they must be right.  So many mammals thinking the same thing…surely they can’t all be wrong.”  He came back to Judy and put a paw on her shoulder.

“But then I met Officer Hopps.  She believed in me, showed me I could help people like I had always wanted.  She helped me prove to the ZPD before I even applied that I could do the job, and do it right.  And now I’m doing it, every day.  Making the world a better place, one auditorium at a time.  And I want you to know that you can do it too.  I believe in you.  Maybe you don’t want to be a police officer, and that’s okay.  But you can prove them wrong.  You can be anything.  Look at us.  A dumb bunny and a sly fox could never be police officers…yet here we are.  A clever bunny and an honest fox, on the force. 

“Never let your species define you.  Be defiant.”

Here, Judy stepped in, adding her own voice to the silent awe of the large room. 

“And if you want to follow in your parents pawprints, that’s okay too.  If you’re a bunny and you want to farm, be the best farmer you can be.  If you’re a beaver and want to build things, build the sturdiest buildings you can and be proud of it.  Don’t limit yourselves.  Never think ‘I can’t’ or ‘I shouldn’t’.  Try everything.  Be anything.”

It wasn’t the last question asked of Nick, of course.  Others had followed, asking his favorite food and what he did for fun and was he from Zootopia?  He answered each one with energy, and when their time was up they left the stage to applause.  Afterward in the cruiser Nick was quiet but not from nerves.  He was beaming, a smile lighting up his features.  Judy shot him a sly grin at a red light.

“Tell me I was wrong,” said Judy.  He looked back at her.

“You were wrong, Carrots,” responded Nick with a wink.  She slapped him.

“I was not!  I told you that you’d do just fine, and you did.”

“I did not do ‘just fine,’” exclaimed the fox with false insult.  “I did _great_ , thank you very much.”  They both laughed, and were silent for a few minutes.

Then, Judy broke the silence as they pulled into the precinct parking lot. 

“So, you’ve been a police officer for about a year now,” said Judy.

“Mmhm,” hummed the fox, hopping out of the car.  She hopped out as well.

“And we’ve been partners all of that time.”

“Pretty good partners, sure.  What’s your point?”

“Well.”  They strolled toward the building, and she wrung her paws nervously.  “You know my parents know you’re my partner.  And…”  Nick spared her a sideways glance, one eyebrow perked up.  She sighed.  “They called me and wanted to know when they’d get to meet my ‘foxy boyfriend.’  Told me to bring you home next time I go.”

She knew he’d laugh.  She hadn’t expected him to laugh _that hard_ , however.  And when he was finished laughing, he stopped and turned to her.

“We’re not even dating, Fluff,” he said in good humor.

“I _know_ that,” retorted Judy hotly.  “And I told _them_ that, but they don’t believe me!  You should have heard my mother, she was going on about how I shouldn’t be ashamed of being predosexual, her favorite brother is one blah blah blah.”

Nick started chuckling again and resumed his stroll into the station proper, passing Clawhauser’s desk with a wave to the rotund cheetah.  “So you want me to go home with you and convince them otherwise, right?”  She nodded emphatically, and he chuckled again, shaking his head.  “I dunno, Carrots, it sounds like it’ll be a real hassle.  And you know how pretty I am, I wouldn’t want to become some other bunny bumpkin’s girlfriend while I’m there.”

“Oh you mean little,” huffed Judy, punching him.  “As if any bunny would _want_ you, Scruffy.  Seriously, look how coarse your fur is, it’s shameful.”

Nick adopted an offended look, his paw to his chest.  “I’ll have you know that my fur is perfectly acceptable by vulpine standards, you philistine.  So when are we going to Bunnyburrow then, since you’re not afraid I’ll seduce your mom?”

Judy shook her head, cracking a smile.  “Actually, I was thinking the first week of July.  I’m already scheduled to go home that week since it’s a bunny holiday my family celebrates pretty devoutly.”  They entered their shared cubicle and sat at their respective desks on opposite sides of the cubicle.  Judy pulled some paperwork she was scheduled to finish that afternoon, and Nick spun in his chair to face her.

“Bunny holiday, huh?  Which one?  Why’s it special?”

“Well,” said Judy somewhat distractedly, already beginning her paperwork.  “The seventh of July is Sarenmas.  Saren’s Festival.  That’s the old name for Serendipity.”

“Serendipity?”  Nick tilted his head.  “You mean like ‘a happy accident’?”

“No, dumb fox.”  Judy dropped her pen and turned her chair to face him.  “She’s our chief goddess.  Serendipity helps you find the things you need that you never looked for.  I’m not very religious, but my parents would say Serendipity made us meet, originally.  I never realized I needed to learn tolerance, and so Serendipity led you to me.  To teach me a lesson.

“But anyway, that whole week rabbits celebrate.  In Bunnyburrow, we do so by holding the Carrot Days Festival.  It’s always been a big deal around my house.”

“Hmm,” hummed Nick.  “That’s interesting. I’ve never even thought of bunnies having different gods than foxes, you know.  I suppose it makes sense.”  He turned to pull his own paperwork.  “I’ll put in for the days off.  I haven’t taken any of my holiday days yet, so I have plenty.”

They wrote in silence for a long time.  Eventually, though, curiosity got the better of Judy and she turned around to face Nick again.

“What gods to foxes have?”  Nick looked at her over his shoulder and returned to his paperwork.

“We have Selene,” he said without turning again, writing more on his paperwork.  “Goddess of moonlight.  Her brother Apollo, god of healing and truth.”  There was a pause and Judy thought he had stopped talking, until he spoke again.  “But we most adore Karma.”

Here, he did stop talking.  Judy waited a minute, and when he didn’t continue, she prompted him.  “Tell me about Karma.  Please?”  Nick looked over his shoulder again and a small grin escaped at her expression of unadulterated curiosity.

“Karma,” said Nick, turning his chair around again, “is our goddess of retribution.  She keeps track of everything you do, and everything that’s done to you.  Eventually, sometimes in this life and sometimes in the next, she balances the scales.  You’re punished for all the bad you do, rewarded for all the good.  ‘Mind the threefold law,’ I was always told.  ‘three times bad and three times good.’  Everything you do, Karma returns on you three times.  She’s always watching, and no amount of pleading can sway her.

“…she’s why I decided to take you up on your offer to help me be a cop.  I lost my faith, once, but then Karma stared at me through the eyes of a bunny cop and dared me to do her work.”

Nick looked at her warmly and Judy smiled.  As one, they turned back to the work at hand. 

The day of their shared vacation came too quickly and agonizingly slowly in equal measure, and the morning they were scheduled to depart Judy was at Nick’s apartment an hour early.

He’d expected as much.

Nick expected her early so hard, in fact, that he’d gotten up and dressed _two_ hours early just to be able to surprise her, and when he opened the door fully dressed in his favorite green floral print shirt and tan trousers, the look of glee was worth the trouble.

“You’re already up!” exclaimed Judy, hopping in place.  Then:  “What are you _wearing_ , Nick?  You’re meeting my parents today, do you have to look so…loud?”

He laughed at her, letting her in and closing the door behind her.  “It got me your favor, didn’t it?  Want some coffee?  It’s still pre-dawn, I’ve got a whole pot.”

Judy rolled her eyes at him and walked straight to his closet to look for a better shirt.

“We’ve been partners for over a year, Slick, you’ve never seen me drink coffee yet.”

“Well yeah,” said Nick following her into the bedroom.  “But I assumed you drank it at home during all your free time, since you wake up so early.”

“No, rabbits can’t drink coffee.  Caffeine is like cocaine to us.  Where are all your _normal_ shirts, Nick?”

“The only ‘normal’ shirts I possess are my ZPD greys, Carrots, and those are packed.  You can’t have caffeine at all?  Really?  That’s…bizarre.”

Judy closed her closet with a disgusted look.  “Have you seen how energetic rabbits are?  Do _you_ want us to have more energy?”  She went over to him and tugged on his shirt, closed the top button, and adjusted his tie, all despite his disgruntled growl and attempts to slap her away.  Finally she stepped back.  “It’ll do.  Let’s go, early train.  Come on come on come on!”

They rushed to get to the train station like Judy always did anything, just to get there half an hour early.  Nick was not shy about pointing this out, but she shushed him.  Finally though they were on the train and speeding toward bunny-central.

“Two hundred miles, huh?”  Nick fiddled with his tie nervously.  They’d been further out of the city than he’d ever been for the better part of an hour.

“Two hundred eleven, actually,” said Judy with her muzzle pressed to the window.  “I missed the country, I’m glad we’re going.”

“Sure.  Country is nice.  All green and…green….”

Judy looked at him, her nose twitching.  “Nick…are you nervous?  It’s just my parents.  And siblings.”

He shook his head.  “I uh…I have a thing about the woods.  I’ve never left Zootopia before, and that’s part of why.  Jungle District makes me nervous, and it’s part of the city.”

“I always thought you were just afraid of heights,” confessed Judy softly.

“I’ll be fine.”  Nick seemed to be able to tell Judy was about to apologize for bringing him, and he smiled.  “As long as there’s _some_ kind of civilization, I should be just fine.”

Judy nodded, with an encouraging smile.  “And my family’s farm is pretty big so it’s mostly acres and acres of field between the Hopps Compound and the trees.”

“Hopps ‘Compound’?”  Nick raised an eyebrow.  “That sounds intimidating.  Why’s it called a compound?” 

“Oh, you’ll see,” grinned Judy.

When they arrived at the station in Bunnyburrow, Judy was surprised to see only her two parents waiting for them.  When the doors opened, she rushed out with her suitcase and was promptly engulfed in hugs from both of them, as well as warm greetings.

“It’s good to see you guys.  Where is everyone, I figured you’d bring a lot of the kids?”  She turned as she talked to make sure Nick was coming.  He was ambling behind her with his own suitcase at a leisurely pace.

“Oh, we didn’t want to overwhelm Nick,” explained Bonnie with a smile, looking past Judy to Nick, who was coming up behind her.

“Yep,” followed up Stu.  “It can overwhelm ole’ Gid when he comes by the house, and he’s lived here his whole life.  I’m Judy’s dad Stu.  This is Bonnie.”  He held a paw out to Nick, and the fox shook his paw and then Bonnie’s.

“Nick,” said Nick.  “Just how many bunnies are we talking?”

“Oh around two hundred fifty.”  Bonnie wrung her paws nervously.  “Most of the oldest ones are out on their own, or there would be more.”

Nick smiled and put an arm around Bonnie and Stu’s shoulders, leading them toward the station’s parking lot.  “Don’t you worry one bit, missus and mister Hopps, I am great with crowds.”

“Oh don’t,” said Bonnie.  “Bonnie and Stu.  We don’t stand on ceremony in our family.”

“Well, Bonnie, Stu,” drawled the fox, “I think this will be a great holiday.”

It started off that way.  Once they were within sight of the Hopps property, Nick whistled from his seat in the back of Bonnie and Stu’s van. 

“That is one impressive place.  I count two, three, four…six outbuildings?  What are they all for?”

“Storage, mostly,” replied Stu from the driver’s seat.  “With a family as big as ours and on a farm as large as the one we have, you generate a lot of stuff that needs to be stored.  The big central building in front of course is the house proper.  The long building next to it is a garage, then equipment storage, produce, produce again, produce a third time, workshop, and finally over on the other side of the house we have storage of household goods.”  The buildings were arranged in a loose ring around what was clearly a makeshift playground of some sort, with the fields stretching in all directions around the appropriately named compound.

The house proper was certainly large, a beautiful colonial style building with cream paint and brown trim.

“It’s certainly a beautiful house,” complimented Nick as they drove down the long driveway.  “Can you all really fit inside, though?  Even a house that size must want for space something fierce.”

“Oh no,” laughed Judy, “there’s a whole warren underneath.  The whole warren is about three times the size of the house itself.” 

Nick gaped at her.  “You live _underground?_ I thought that was a stereotype!”

“It’s actually necessary.”  Stu parked out front and turned off the vehicle.  “Rabbit families are so large that we can’t spread out without running out of space, and we can’t build up very far because most rabbits don’t like heights.  So we build _down_.”

“Yes,” continued Bonnie as they exited the van, “and it doubles as natural air conditioning.  Underground homes tend to stay at a nice cool temperature year round regardless of how hot or cold it is on the surface.  Very energy efficient, which is nice.”

“Well shoot, I might just build a den myself,” joked Nick as they approached the house. 

They didn’t get a chance to respond to him because at that moment they opened the front door, and a flood of little bunnies came rushing to them and climbing all over Judy with various shouts of greeting and questions.  The fluffle very quickly migrated to Nick as soon as they noticed him, a dozen or more tiny bunnies pulling on his arms and legs.

“Are you related to Gideon?!” asked one doe.

“You’re Judy’s boyfriend, right?”  said another.

“Are you living here now?!” shrieked one excitable young buck.

Nick shot a look at Judy, then carefully extracted his limbs.  “I don’t know anyone named Gideon,” he said, “but when I meet him I’ll tell him you said hi.  And I’m not living here, just visiting with your big sister.  Hey, that’s my tail!  I need that back.  Thanks.”

“IT’S SO FLUFFY!” shouted the little one who’d grabbed his tail, before sprinting into the house.

Eventually, the children got distracted by other things, or were otherwise pushed into other activities by their parents.  The older kids, on the other hand, lurked around the periphery like vultures, watching with a keen interest while trying to look utterly unaffected.

“Boy, I see what you meant about a lot of energy,” said Nick once the younger kids had been shooed away.  “I thought it was just you.”

“Don’t let Judy fool you,” Stu said.  “She was a little hellion herself when she was that age.  Judy, we have your old room all cleaned up for you guys.”

“Yeah,” continued Bonnie, “we’ll let you kids get settled.  When you’re ready, come on into the kitchen.  Could always use a pair of helping paws.”  The parents moved to walk away.  Nick cleared his throat.

“Uh, I hate to sound ungrateful…but while I wouldn’t mind using Fluff-butt here as a pillow I’m not sure that’s entirely appropriate.”  For a long moment, Bonnie and Stu both looked between Judy and Nick and Nick’s paw which he’d placed on Judy’s shoulder.

“Oh,” said Bonnie finally.  “No, that’s not a problem at all.  You can take Samuel’s room, he’s at University.  It’ll be a little dusty, I’m afraid.”

“No problem at all,” said Nick.  “Dust and I are old friends.”  Judy offered to show him the way, and the two pairs parted.  Judy led him to a staircase and started down.

“No elevator?  I’m shocked,” snarked Nick. 

“Har har,” replied Judy.  “We do have one, but you need the exercise.  You’re getting pudgy in your old age.”  She glanced over her shoulder at him, and caught him staring at her tail.  “Eyes up, Slick.”

Nick grinned.  He didn’t even have the decency to blush.  “Hey, I never said I wouldn’t look.”

“Yes, but we’re in my _parents’ house._ ”

“Who think we’re already in the ‘sharing a bed’ phase of the relationship we’re not in.  I don’t think they’ll object to a little leering.  Besides, you have a very cu-ah, nice tail.”

Judy shook her head and continued down another flight of carpeted stairs, choosing not to react to the word he almost used.  “Maybe, but it won’t help our case.”  Nick hummed his agreement.

It didn’t take long to find Judy’s room, which was just down a well-lit hallway from the stairs, or Nick’s room which was conveniently across the hall from Judy’s. They were simply furnished with a bunny-sized bed, a desk, a closet, and a dresser.  Nick simply tossed his suitcase on the bed and poked his head in Judy’s room.  She was putting clothes from her suitcase into a dresser.

“Mom and dad tried to justify getting you a fox-sized bed,” she said, having noticed him in the doorway.  “I told them you wouldn’t need it, though.”

“Probably not,” said Nick, entering the room proper.  He grinned at the ZPD posters on the wall.  “I do ball up when I sleep, after all.”

“Mmhm.  That’s what I told them.  Those are my panties, give them back.  What are you grinning at?”

“Carrot-print, really?”  Nick’s grin widened when she snatched the underpants from him.  “I noticed your ZPD posters; you had it bad when you were a kid, didn’t you?”  She shook her head, smiling, and didn’t answer.  Once she was finished putting things away, she pushed him toward the door. 

“Come on, parents are waiting.” 

The kitchen was on the ground floor and took up a large space, filled with industrial-sized appliances.  More than a few older bunny kids were helping prepare food in some way or another, Stu was sipping a drink at a counter, and Bonnie was kneading some dough.

“Oh hey kids,” said Bonnie, barely looking up.  “Judy, help Victoria with the potatoes.  Nick, be a doll and cut up these carrots here, knife is in front of me.”

“She’s putting you to work,” said Judy, moving to help peel potatoes.  “Already a part of the family, look at that.”  Nick stuck his tongue out at her and went to the counter, taking up a paring knife.  He started slicing carrots with what almost looked like a practiced paw.

“Actually, Bonnie, I wanted to talk to you guys about that.”

“What?  Being part of the family?”  Bonnie looked over at him, beaming.  “We’ve heard a lot about you, Nick, and now that we’ve met you, even for so short a time, we both like you a lot.  You don’t have to worry about us.”

“Yeah.”  Stu set down his now-empty glass and leaned on the counter across from Nick.  “We used to be real backward, hated predators, and especially foxes.  But Jude showed us we were wrong for that.  Since then, we’ve taken the effort to get to know preds better; we’re even working with a fox, best darn baker I’ve ever seen and a really great fella.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” replied Nick genuinely.  “The thing is…Judy is just my partner.  I was told you think we’re dating, and…well, we’re not.”  He looked up at Stu seriously.  “She’s great, she’s attractive, she’s got an adorable little twitchy tail.”  Nick shot a wink at Judy, who groaned.

“But so far, we’re just friends.  We haven’t dated.”  Stu and Bonnie exchanged a look.  Then Stu looked back at Nick.

“Why on earth _NOT_?!”  Judy and Nick both blinked at him in surprise.  “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Judy.”

“Dad,” cried Judy, “come on!  He’s a fox!  I love him to death and back, but…we’re not compatible.”

“Bull pucky,” said Stu flatly.

“Judy, sweetheart,” continued Bonnie, “when you were in high school you put hearts around Gideon’s cousin in your yearbook.  And in middle school you sort of stalked that poor jackal who moved here from Podunk.  You can’t say you’re not into canines.”  Judy’s ears flushed bright red and she sputtered.

“Besides,” said Stu over Judy’s attempts at refusal, “Nick here makes you happy.  When you met him, you changed, Judy.  You were always so determined that it took all your focus.  Even when you joined the force, you weren’t happy.  And when Nick went to the Academy, you were lonely.  When he got back, you smiled more.  You called more often, and you were more excited on the phone.”

“He’s my _friend,_ dad!”

“Sure.  And that’s fine.  But your mate should always be a friend.  That’s how good marriages work.”

“I’d like to interject something,” interrupted Nick.  Stu fell silent and looked over at him.  “First of all, I’m not a canine.  While foxes are part of the canidae family, making us canids, we are also in the vulpes family.  Not the canis family, like wolves and jackals, who _are_ canines.”  He winked, showing that he was fooling with them and was not offended.

“Second, I wasn’t lying when I said I think Judy is attractive.  Karma strike me down if I ever claim otherwise.  But we foxes take relationships very seriously.  My mom hung out with my dad for three _years_ before asking him out, and that’s normal for my kind.”

“…wait, so…”  Judy looked at Nick oddly.  “Are you saying…you were going to ask me out one day?”

Nobody missed how eagerly Bonnie snapped back to look at Nick, or how Stu crossed his fingers behind his back.

“Well, Carrots,” drawled Nick, rubbing his neck awkwardly.  “I can’t say I wasn’t considering it.  Any buck—and any tod, for that matter—would be lucky to have you.”  Anything else he might have said was interrupted by Stu colliding with him in a bear hug.  The buck was sniffling.  Nick gingerly patted his back, unsure what to do.

“Oh, Stu.”  Bonnie wiped her paws and moved to pull him off Nick.  “Pull it together.  Nick, honey, you take your time.  Serendipity knows, Judy has never shown an interest in any _bunny_.  And between you and me…”  Bonnie stage whispered, “the girl’s got a crush.”  When Judy groaned in embarrassment, Bonnie winked at him.

“Anyway, get to slicing, fox.  Gotta earn your keep.”

Nick grinned as widely as his mouth would let him, while Judy mumbled something about manipulative parents, and Nick couldn’t help but think that this was going to be a great week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That...ended up being quite long. I'm pleased with it, though. And hey, no angst! Those of you who have read Kittah4's work might recognize a reference. If you don't read that author's stories, you should. Right now. Amazing writer.
> 
> So listen. I had no plans to make this a series at all. But now that I've ended it, I can see how it might go that way. So I'll leave it up to you guys: If everyone wants me to continue this story, I'll poke at it when I can. My other two series will take precedence until one of them ends, of course.
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy, and please leave comments! Comments are love, comments are life.
> 
> And I'd like to take a moment, since I don't say this often, to say: I love you guys. Your comments, your questions, your kudos. Even taking the time to view my work is great, and you're all awesome for it. Thanks, truly!


	2. Differing Cultures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to offer a word of warning: This chapter contains frank discussions of sexuality; if such things bother or disturb you, please proceed with caution.

As she did each evening once the littlest of her children were in bed and the older ones winding down, Bonnie Hopps sat in the huge great room on the ground floor of the Hopps Warren with some needlepoint in her lap.  She was sitting cuddled up against her husband Stuart in one corner on an extra-wide armchair.  Around them were a dozen and a half of the oldest Hopps children, most adults in their own right, and most occupied by one of the televisions, books, or conversation. 

There were two additions, however, to this quiet ritual that had Bonnie distracted from the needlepoint.  Sitting cross-legged facing each other in the middle of the floor was her oldest daughter Judy and her partner, a four foot tall red fox named Nicholas Wilde.  The two of them stared deeply into each others’ eyes, paws joined palm to palm, knees barely touching, utterly silent.  When they arrived this morning, while helping Bonnie prepare the stew, Nicholas had calmly explained to them—in front of eight of Judy’s siblings, which Bonnie could tell was a struggle for him—that they were indeed not dating; he had admitted in the same conversation quite calmly indeed that he had seriously considered asking Judy out at some point in the future.

Bonnie, of course, had simply disbelieved him.  She assumed that he was lying to them on Judy’s behest; poor doe had never been comfortable with relationships, so of course she’d ask the fox to lie for her.  Bonnie hadn’t minded so much.  She had been upset that Judy felt it necessary to lie, but she’d been trying very hard over the years to learn to accept Judy’s brand of eccentricities, and so she’d simply dropped the issue.  She did, however, spend the rest of the day carefully observing them when she could while cooking and looking after children.  Stu had of course retired to the fields soon after that conversation, so she was left with her own thoughts.

She’d come to the disappointing conclusion by the end of the day that Nicholas had not lied to her.  Oh, they certainly had in-jokes and casual touches.  Judy would punch Nicholas for calling her cute, Nicholas would rest an arm on Judy’s shoulder while talking to one of her brothers, Judy would casually drape her arm over his when sitting next to each other.  Bonnie had even caught them holding paws briefly when Judy led him to the third produce barn to give Stu a paw with some things.  But none of that was remotely romantic.  Nicholas was obviously more physical than other foxes Bonnie had met, but Judy treated him physically like she did any sibling.  Less physically, even, if she had to be honest about it, since there was only one instance of brief pawholding, precious few hugs, and no cuddling at all.  Bonnie suspected they’d never even undressed around one another.

But she did have cause to be cautiously optimistic.  She saw the way Nicholas looked at Judy when she wasn’t paying attention, that soft gaze and small smile that spoke volumes.  The way his movement synced with hers, stepping with and around her as if she were a natural extension of his own body, hyperaware of where she was at all times.

The way his gaze lingered on her paw when she held a sibling’s paw during dinner conversation.

That tod was in love with Judy.  And Judy…Serendipity help her, the doe was hopelessly lost in her fox.  If she refrained from normal physical contact it wasn’t from a desire to do so.  Bonnie caught Judy a dozen times during the day reaching out to caress her fox and pulling away before touching.  Gazing at him like he was water and she were a cucumber plant.  Sniffing the air absently right where Nicholas had been standing moments before, with that dopey little smile that meant she was ears over tail in love.

But that alone was cause for attention, if Bonnie was honest with herself.  Judith had spent her entire adolescent life enamored only with the Zootopia Police Department.  Never did she bring home bed partners.  It hadn’t bothered Bonnie at first, of course; Judy began puberty very late, and so it was expected that her libido would take time to catch up.  But where her siblings couldn’t get away from smelling like arousal all day every day well into their teens, Judy never did.  She had never been caught with her pants round her ankles, had never purchased condoms, didn’t get oral contraceptives.  Judy had never even spoken to Bonnie or Stu about sex at all after The Talk.

The few times she’d even developed crushes, it was with no apparent physical component and only on predators.  And even then, she had never been so completely aware of the object of her affection.  Bonnie had spent a lot of time worrying about Judy, had spoken to lapine doctors about her.  They’d thrown around words like “nonstandard sexuality” and said Judy was probably just fine.

Now, sitting in the great room with her daughter and the first real love of her young life, Bonnie swore she could detect a hint of arousal from across the room.

“Stu.”  Bonnie spoke quietly, nudging her husband, who was reading a book.

“Mmhm.”  Stu didn’t look up.

“Stu,” repeated Bonnie, nudging him again.  This time he looked up, taking off his reading glasses.  “Stu, what are they doing?”  She nodded to Judy and Nicholas, who were still sitting very still, palms together horizontally, breathing at the same slow pace as each other.

“Oh, looks like they’re doing some kind of meditation,” remarked Stu quietly.  “Nick asked me about if it would be okay when he helped me out earlier, said something about…I dunno.  Some kind of power raising meditation from fox religion.  Poor guy was terrified we’d kick him out for blasphemy or something.”

“So why’s Judy doing it too?”

“I dunno, Bon.”  Stu put his glasses back on and looked at his novel again.  “He didn’t say why she’d be involved.”

“Judy’s never been religious,” muttered Bonnie, more to herself than to Stu.  She continued to watch them for a long time, her needlepoint forgotten on her lap.

By the time the two broke apart, they and the parents were the only ones left in the room, though Stu had nodded off over his book and was snoring lightly.  The two pulled apart with a matched sigh, then stood and stretched, glancing around.  Nicholas looked surprised.

“Wow, we’re almost the last ones up.”  The fox came to sit on the couch near Bonnie’s chair.  “Sorry for keeping you up, Bonnie.  I see we didn’t stop Stu from sleeping though.”

Bonnie smiled with him and shook her head.  “Don’t apologize, I’d have been up anyway.”

“Mom is notorious for her late nights,” quipped Judy, sitting next to Nick.

“It’s true,” conceded Bonnie.  “There have been more times than I can count that I’ve gone to bed twice in one night.  Once with Stu and once to sleep, because I wasn’t tired even after an orgasm.  I just don’t sleep as much as most bunnies.”  Nick raised an eyebrow and Judy giggled embarrassedly. 

“I uh.  I forgot to warn you, Nick.”  Judy put a paw on his shoulder, still trying to not giggle.  “We’re very, um…forward in bunny culture.”

“Right,” said Nick, looking back at Judy.  “Well, who am I to judge?  When in Rome, I suppose.”

Bonnie smiled in amusement, and took pity on his discomfort, changing the subject.  “Nicholas, honey, I couldn’t help but notice what you and Judy were doing.  Stu tried to explain, but I don’t really understand what it was.”

Nick blinked at her for a moment before realizing what she was talking about, then he grinned sheepishly.  “Oh.  Uh.”  He spoke hesitantly.  “I know you don’t practice the same traditions around here; I asked Stu if it was okay….”

“No no no,” said Bonnie quickly, raising her paws.  “It’s fine, dear.  I’m just curious about what you were doing.  I don’t know a thing about predator traditions.”

“Oh, well.”  He glanced over at Judy before settling back into the couch comfortably.  “I was doing a ki raising meditation.  It helps me to focus and process the events of the day, and it provides me with a bit of an energy boost the following morning.  See, we all have energy in our bodies; foxes call it ki.  If you know how, you can focus it and consolidate it in your core.”

“Was Judy doing that too?”  Bonnie glanced at her daughter reassuringly.  “She’s just never been one for practicing spirituality at all, so I have to wonder how you got her to.”

Judy shook her head.  “No.  I was just helping him.  It’s…well, Nick?”  She looked at Nick, clearly expecting him to explain.

“I use Fluff-butt as a meditative focus,” said the fox, flicking one of Judy’s ears.  It earned him a good natured punch.  “Her presence can help ground me, and prevent my mind from wandering.  I…”  He cleared his throat self-consciously.  “Well, despite my interest in learning about religions, I was very not-religious for a very long time, and I struggle a little with self-destructive thoughts that can be very disruptive to proper meditation.  Carrots helps me focus past that, helps me ground myself in the moment.”

“In return,” continued Judy, “I discovered that I have the side effect of starting to meditate myself, which—religious gobbledygook aside—is incredibly good for mental health.  It’s actually really refreshing.”

“Judy, honey,” chided Bonnie, “I’ve been telling you that for years.”  Judy grinned contritely.  “Well…I suppose I should be grateful that you’ve managed to hustle my daughter into some healthy practices, anyway.”

Nick laughed.  “Yes, Bonnie, that’s exactly what I was trying to accomplish with that.  You got me.” 

Judy stood up and swatted his arm.  “Leave my mom alone, Nick.”  Her reprimand was only half-serious and punctuated with a yawn.  “I’m going to bed, guys.  Don’t stay up too late, Nick, you’re getting up early.”  Nick and Bonnie said good night and she wandered out of the room.

“Eyes up, Nick,” said Bonnie, smiling at Nick.  She’d seen how he was eying Judy’s tail.  The inside of his ears turned red in a blush and she laughed quietly.  “I’m a mother, dear.  I notice these things.”  She turned to face her still-sleeping husband.  “Stu.  Stuart.”  She poked him in the rib.  “Stuart Hopps.  Wake up.” 

Stu jerked and looked around, his glasses skewed.  “Huh? What? What happened?”

“You fell asleep, honeybun.”  Bonnie pulled him to his feet and then gave him a tender kiss.  “Go to bed, dear.  I’ll be along in a bit.”

“Mmhm.  Yeah,” mumbled Stu.  He returned her kiss and tottered off.  Once he was gone, Bonnie sat back down and looked over at Nick seriously.

“Nicholas,” said Bonnie, “I wanted to talk to you privately.”

To his credit, Nick did not look terrified.  Much.  He made himself more comfortable and nodded to her to continue.

“I know you like my daughter.  You as good as admitted it this morning, and I’ve seen how you look at her.  I’d be thrilled if you two got together, hon, don’t let me deceive you.  But…”  Bonnie rubbed the back of her neck, unsure how to word her concern.  “Well, bunnies are…very different from other mammals, in the romance department.  Has Judy talked to you about our approach to relationships?”

Nick shook his head.  “Not really.  It’s never come up, to be honest.  She’s mentioned that she’s not really experienced and her peers thought she was weird because of that, but that was all she’s ever said on the subject.”

Bonnie chuckled.  “Well, she’s right about that.  Judy has never dated, and in bunny society that’s…well, it’s unheard of.  Usually by the time a bunny graduates high school, they’ve had a dozen partners already.”

Nick frowned.  “I thought rabbits mated for life?”  His tone was one of confusion, not one of accusation.

“Mmhm.  We do, absolutely.”  Bonnie set aside the needlework she’d placed back in her lap.  “But we define ‘mate’ a bit differently than other mammals.  A rabbit may have many sexual partners, but will only ever marry once.  For us, to be ‘mated’ to someone implies a very strong emotional connection, more so than a sexual one.  A healthy sex life is important, of course, but the sex is incidental.”

“So…”  Nick spoke slowly, making sure he understood.  “You’re saying that for most bunnies…emotional fidelity is more important than sexual fidelity?”

Bonnie nodded.  “We’re a very…physical species, Nick.  We grow up in crowds and we learn early to be comfortable with a lot of touch.  We also have some of the highest libidos in the animal kingdom.  Judy said we’re very forward, and she’s right.  Why shouldn’t we be?  For us, physical intimacy is simply a part of life.  We talk about it openly, and we don’t hide it.  And when we become attracted to someone, well…often, we simply express that attraction.  That’s normal, for us. 

“But we only love, truly and deeply, one at a time.  Most bunnies only ever truly fall in love once in their lives.”

Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he considered her words.  She could see he was struggling with it, but she wasn’t sure what he didn’t understand so she waited.

After a long moment, he cleared his throat.  “I don’t…I’m not sure…”

“Let’s try this,” interrupted Bonnie.  “Tell me how foxes handle relationships.” 

Nick was abruptly much more comfortable, and he took only a moment to gather his thoughts.  “Well, foxes are loners for the most part.  It’s pretty standard for a fox to have only a couple close friends.  And we move slowly into relationships with others usually, because it’s hard for us to trust others.  Probably a byproduct of a thousand years of being treated like the villain.”  His smile softened the words, made it clear he wasn’t laying blame.  “In fox culture, it’s the females that take control.  That’s probably why they have a reputation for being…well…”

“Promiscuous?” supplied Bonnie.

“Exactly.  Which isn’t really the case, but usually it’s a vixen who asks out a tod, not the other way around.  It’s the vixen who’s usually expected to pick the date and pay for dinner and instigate any physical activities.  And she will, but only after befriending the person she likes and being friends with him, or her, for a long time.  And only when she’s sure does she ask him out.

“Bunnies get a bad rap for being really emotional, but it’s actually foxes who should get that reputation.  We’re _driven_ by emotion.  Everything we do has a root meaning in our emotional state.  And a fox simply…can’t become intimate with someone without loving them completely.  It goes against our nature.”

Something clicked in Bonnie’s mind and suddenly she understood.

“Ohhh.”  She nodded.  “I see the problem.  For you, physical and emotional intimacy are, are…bonded.  Linked.  You can’t have sex without romantic love, and you can’t have love without a sexual component.”

Nick nodded.  “Yeah.  It’s the same thing.  You can express it differently.  But the same emotion drives romance and sex.”

“But it doesn’t,” replied Bonnie.  “Not for bunnies.  For us, lust and love are entirely separate.  We are viciously monogamous when it comes to _love_ …less so when it comes to lust.”  She could see the comprehension in his eyes, and then his hesitation.

“And Judy….” He trailed off.

“Is Judy,” finished Bonnie.  “She’s twenty-six and a virgin.  Most bunnies her age have been sexually active for more than ten years.  I don’t know why she’s so prudish, but I can’t predict what will happen if and when she becomes sexually active.”

Nick sighed and silence fell between them for a long moment.

Finally, Nick looked back at Bonnie.  “Our cultures are very different, Mrs.  Hopps.”

“Yes, they are.”  She picked up her needlework again.  “And I expect you to bridge the gap with Judy as fairly as you can when the time comes.”

“I will.  Thank you for being open with me, Bonnie.”  Nick stood to leave.

“Of course, dear,” smiled Bonnie.  “You’ll be one of us in due time.  I want you to be as comfortable as any of my other children with talking to me about anything.”

She began to poke at her needlepoint work as Nick thanked her again and started to move, but then she remembered something.

“Oh, Nick,” she called.  He stopped and turned, raising an eyebrow.  “You said you study religion….can I ask you something?”  She was apprehensive, and could tell he’d noticed it.  The grin that pierced his muzzle was certainly mischievous if she’d ever seen one, and the teeth that showed sent her little heart beating with further apprehension, an artifact of her upbringing she was trying to shake.

“Of course,” he said, sitting back down.

“One of my other daughters, Susan, has…”  Bonnie hesitated.  “Well, she’s decided to worship a predator god.  I wondered if you knew anything about Diana?  Susan says it’s a hunter god and…”

“And you’re concerned about what this pagan religion is teaching your daughter?”  Nick’s grin widened when Bonnie nodded.  “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about.  It’s a hunting cult.  Monthly ritual sacrifices complete with cannibalistic feasts, sex rites under the full moon.  The usual.”  Bonnie’s jaw dropped and her chest grew tight with the stress of that news, and Nick laughed out loud seeing her reaction.

“I’m screwing with you, Mrs. Hopps,” he comforted her, still chuckling.  “No, it’s nothing to worry about.  Historically, Diana is a lion goddess.  She was a goddess of the hunt, overseeing the capturing of prey and teaching the proper treatment and respect of that prey.  In more recent years, though, that’s translated to the gathering of nourishments and treating fellow mammals with respect.  Her rituals today involve symbolic sacrifices of bread and wine, that sort of thing.  The worst she’ll do is get a bit tipsy at a ritual.”

Bonnie sighed with relief and gave Nicholas a stern look.  Judy had warned her that he could be a joker, but she hadn’t expected something like that.  Still…he was charming nonetheless, and the joy his chuckling contained was infectious, so she slowly smiled back at him.  Bonnie was becoming acutely aware of what Judy saw in him; he was, after all, quite the attractive male.  For a fox.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Judy would share, but she shook the thought away.

“Thank you for giving me a heart attack, Nicholas,” she scolded good-naturedly.  “And thanks for explaining it to me.”

“Any time, Bonnie.  I’m for bed.  Good night.”  She smiled and said good night back to him, and he hesitated uncertainly, looking down at her.  Understanding, Bonnie opened his arms in invitation, and he bent down to give her a bashful hug before making his way across the room to find his bed.  Poor thing was making such an effort to fit in, Bonnie had to respect it.

My, did he smell good, though. 

She turned her thoughts to her needlepoint, and was busy with it for the better part of an hour before she decided to go take out her frustrations on her husband.  She padded her way to their bedroom on the first sublevel, undressed completely, and slid into bed next to Stu, running her claws through his chest fur.  It was enough to rouse him, and he blinked at her in the darkness.

“You smell like fox,” he mumbled sleepily.  “Do I have to worry about him begging my forgiveness tomorrow?” 

Bonnie chuckled.  “No, Stu, he belongs firmly to our daughter.  Now wake up and get those boxers off.”  She muffled any protests or suggestions he might have had with an amorous kiss, and helped him out of his undergarments.

Meanwhile, one floor down, Judy and Nick both lay awake across the hall from each other.  Nick, of course, had been able to smell Bonnie’s interest and was now trying and failing to not think about how uncomfortable that idea was so he could sleep.

Judy, on the other hand, was kept awake by very amorous thoughts indeed for the fox in the next room. 

Both couldn’t help but think that it might end up being a long week after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well....that happened. I'm not sure how happy I am with this chapter, honestly. There was a lot of dialogue, and some of it was more than a little....well, it was exposition. Please feel free to comment if you have something to say! We're all friends here :)


	3. Promises Made

Judy had been helping Nick with energy focus meditations a few nights a week for more than three months.  It was Friday evening and so she knew he’d want to do so tonight; she’d reassured him that it would be fine, but he’d experienced so much speciesism in his time that he insisted on discussing it with her dad.  Stu had, as she’d expected, gave him permission without hesitation and with a not-insubstantial amount of confusion why he was asking.

As an adolescent, Judy had noticed a distinct difference between her and her littermates.  The two sisters and brother she was born with hit puberty at a normal age and spent most of their adolescence experimenting with their own bodies and later those of their friends and classmates.  This was of course very normal for rabbits, but Judy had hit puberty later than her siblings and when she did she experienced no libido spike.  In fact, in her whole life she’d never become sexually aroused without self-stimulation and had never found a single other mammal attractive.

That was, until she’d began meditating with Nick.  They’d become close already, were in fact quite good friends, and that of course is why he’d asked her one evening while they had dinner together after a shift.  He’d explained it to her, went through the whole process, but she still didn’t really understand the point of the exercise.  She knew her presence helped him focus properly, but beyond that it wasn’t terribly clear to her. 

The process was simple.  They sat facing each other cross-legged, knees touching.  Judy rested her paws palm up on the spots where their knees touched, and Nick pressed his own palms to hers, facing down.  Then they breathed deeply and regularly at as close to the same rate as their vastly different physiologies allowed, and looked into each other’s eyes.  There was clearly more to it on Nick’s end, but that’s all Judy was required to do.  The first time they’d done this, she’d expected it to be awkward.  It wasn’t; in fact, their physical closeness was comfortable for her, and the eye contact was incredibly intimate.  Her heart had beat quickly despite the calming breathing exercises. 

During that first session, she slowly became aware of something startling that she’d never experienced before.  As their session went on, she grew warmer in her core.  The sensation grew at the base of her belly, a crawling moist feeling that was simultaneously pleasant and maddening.  It took her only a short time to understand what was happening:  her fox was turning her on.

She’d bet good money he knew it too, with the nose he had.  Fortunately he never mentioned it, and neither did she.  When they finished and she’d returned to her own apartment, she had to take care of the new arousal before she’d been able to sleep.

It became a routine three days a week, and somewhere along the line Judy had found herself meditating during the sessions; she’d never really chosen to do so, it’d just happened.  Once she became aware of what she was doing and how much clearer her thinking was and restful her sleep was thanks to it, it simply became another part of the experience to look forward to. 

Their routine followed the usual pattern their first night in Bunnyburrow, except that it was in her parents’ great room instead of Nick’s living room.  Nick’s paws got very warm as they always did, Judy followed suit in a very different way, and after a few moments it had been over forty-five minutes and the room was mostly deserted.  Judy knew the moment she looked at her mom that the bunny had noticed the change in Judy’s hormonal scent, but neither brought it up.  In fact, Judy didn’t even stay up long after that, fleeing to her room where she eased the heat in her loins.

She heard Nick come down and go into his room, and she couldn’t help but think about him.  She wished her door had been open.  If it had, she might have caught a whiff of Nick’s musk.  Most mammals found fox musk to be unpleasantly strong, and it certainly was a powerful odor—hence the popularity of the scent-masking product Musk Mask—but to Judy it was anything but bad.  It reminded her of violets, and just smelling the sweet odor was often enough to make her smile. 

They had been partners for a year, friends for two, and had become so close that she couldn’t imagine a life without him.  Romance hadn’t ever occurred to her, however, because Nick was a fox.  Not that she was against such relationships; Judy was strongly predoromantic.  She was only attracted, emotionally, to predators, and especially caninds like Nick.  But she’d seen how he looked at vixens, and how he didn’t seem to notice prey animals in the same way.  He’d told her about the few times he’d dated casually in his youth, that they were all red foxes like him. 

Of course, she’d noticed him checking her out on more than a few occasions, but they were best friends.  Of course he’d notice that she had a well-shaped rear end and toned legs.  He noticed and he invariably teased her about it when she noticed him noticing.  It was his way, and he was just teasing her.  Just being friendly.  Of course he wasn’t attracted to her. 

Of course, in the last three months she’d begun trying to formulate plans to _make_ him attracted to her, because she wanted him and knew it was going to be a delicate dance…but here he was, admitting to her family that he was considering asking her out anyway, despite coming from a very female-dominated romance culture.

She’d noticed too today that Nick trying very hard to fit into the culture here.  He’d always been very good at picking up behavioral clues in those around him and he’d begun adopting some of what he saw.  The younger of the children, Judy’s nieces and nephews, didn’t really notice or care about the difference, but the older ones, the ones in whom rabbit culture was deeply ingrained, were picking up on it.  It was most apparent at dinner; Nick of course was a fox, and as a fox his dietary needs were different from her own.  She’d known him long enough to understand that he was more than capable of eating and enjoying vegetarian food, a fact she’d passed along to her parents, and during dinner Nick ate the same food as anyone else. 

He was quick to pick up the nuances of rabbit meal etiquette as well.  She’d learned the hard way that among foxes your plate was yours, their plates were theirs, and that was that.  But here he was, pulling berries from Susan’s plate, teasing Robbie for stealing a carrot from his own, taking food from the communal serving bowls and dishes in the center of the long table without hesitating, and even calling out for people to pass him something he couldn’t reach.  Judy’s practiced and familiar eye could pick up the unease the whole thing gave Nick at first, but he began to get accustomed to it as the meal wore on. 

And that was just one example.  By the end of the day, Nick was bumping, slapping, punching, and hugging the various bunnies around him like he had been living with them his whole life.  The only one he was reserved with was her dad, and then mostly because Stu was out in the fields most of the day. 

Nick was trying so hard to fit in with her culture.  She felt bad that she’d given no thought to his, and so while she sat there in the dark of her room, she picked up her phone and started researching. 

Consequently, she was quite a bit more groggy when she woke up at dawn the next morning, having spent more of the night than she should have reading sociological articles on the vulpine races.  She was groggy enough, in fact, that she walked out of her room and down to the bathroom down the hall without giving thought to her state of undress.  She passed Joseph, the youngest of her siblings at eight years old, also naked just coming out of the bathroom from a shower, and gave him a half-hearted good morning wave as she went in and proceeded with her morning cleaning and purging.  When she was finished and her fur was nice and dry and brushed, she wandered back up the hall and slipped into Nick’s room to wake him.

He was, as usual, curled into a tight ball, his limbs drawn into his body and his tail wrapped around and laying over his nose.  She knew it wasn’t a fox thing; after all, she’d seen other sleeping foxes before.  It was just a Nick thing, and one she found adorable.  The room was saturated with his scent and she took a moment to appreciate the sight and scent before crouching next to his head and poking him gently in the ear.  She grinned when his ear flipped in response, and she did it again.  It flipped again, and she giggled, poking his ear a third time.  This time, Nick’s gentle even breathing changed and he opened one eye, peering over at her.  After a moment, she saw the inside of his ear redden as he blushed.

“Carrots,” he rasped sleepily, “you’re naked.”

She looked down at herself, at her groin that was indeed displayed openly in her crouch, and nodded.  “Yeah, I know,” said Judy, also still sleepily.  “I just got up a few minutes ago.”

Nick’s eyes flicked down to below her waist and rested there for half a second longer than they should have before flicking back up to meet Judy’s eyes.  Suddenly she realized what the problem was and she blushed too.

“Oh gods,” she giggled, turning her body to obscure the more illicit of her features from him.  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t even thinking.”

“Carrots…”  Nick sat up on all fours, testing whether his limbs were awake enough to take his weight.  “You’ve got the modesty of a nun.  Remember the naturalist club?  You were so embarrassed.  What changed?”

“Nothing.”  Judy flicked his ear.  “I’m at home.  I grew up with three hundred bunnies of all ages around me; it’s kind of impossible to avoid seeing each other naked all the time, so you get used to it.  The naturalist club was different.  They weren’t my family.”

Nick groaned, a distinctly anti-morning sound, and shook his head.  “Rabbits are weird,” he complained.  Then he turned and sat up properly, letting his blanket fall off of him.  Even in his tired state his self-consciousness was obvious, but he made no effort to cover his own nakedness.  Judy couldn’t help but look at his sheath; she’d looked up fox anatomy, but it was different seeing it in person.

“Okay Fluff,” exclaimed Nick abruptly, “if you’re going to be like that you’ll have to leave.  I keep smelling your pheromones and you’ll get a show I’m really not comfortable giving you yet.” 

Judy smiled sheepishly and stood.  “Bathroom down the hall, it’s labeled.  Remember the way to the kitchen?  Good, hurry up.  We’re helping dad today.”  She left his room, crossed the hallway, got dressed in some jeans and a ZPD tee shirt, and went to the kitchen.

Bonnie was already there, naturally, putting a black granulated powder into a small coffee maker.  She looked up at Judy as she finished and hit the on button. 

“Morning, bun,” said Bonnie, handing Judy a cup of warm tea.  Judy hummed a greeting in return, taking the cup and leaning against the counter.  They were quiet for a few minutes as each went through a cup of tea.  Then, Bonnie set aside her cup and looked at her daughter. “So Judy, I can’t help but notice your new ‘perfume.’”

Judy chuckled.  “Yeah.  It looks like I’m not broken after all.  Nick can really get me going…it’s going to be rough waiting for him.”

“Waiting for who?  Ooh, is that coffee I smell?”  Nick came in, eyes more alert than they had been, dressed, and fur brushed.  The girls laughed and Bonnie passed him a cup of the coffee she made, which he eagerly accepted.

“I thought you’d appreciate some coffee so I bought some when I heard you were coming.  We were talking about you, actually.”  Bonnie poured herself another cup of the dandelion tea.  “I commented on Judy’s attraction to you.”

“Oh yeah, I’d noticed that.”  Nick took a sip of his coffee; it must have been good, because his ears pricked forward eagerly.  “What about it?”

“I know that foxes move slowly into intimacy,” said Judy, rinsing out her own cup at the sink.  “You seem to have jumpstarted my sex drive, so it’s going to be tough waiting for you to be ready.  I mean…assuming we…”  She trailed off, suddenly unsure.  She had simply assumed, after yesterday, that they would start dating, but now that she’d implied as much she was second-guessing herself.

Nick smiled at her.  “We’ll talk about it, Fluff.  Don’t look so panicked.  So what’s on the agenda today?”

“Hauling produce,” said a gruff voice from behind Nick; Stu had come in from the door to the outside.  He smiled at Nick, then at Judy.  “Carrot Days Festival starts today, we’ve got a produce stand there.”

“Who’s running it today?” asked Judy. 

“David, Cole, and Samantha.  I thought you two could take it tomorrow; let you guys have the first day, show Nick the festival once we set up.”

Judy nodded; it sounded fair enough.  Every year, they alternated bunnies at the stand so that everyone would get a chance to see the festival.  Running the stand wasn’t difficult, either.  It just required them to pay attention and sell stuff.  Judy had no doubt that Nick would do well at it, even in a bunny-dominated place like this.

Stu went to one counter, grabbed a few muffins, and tossed one each to Nick and Judy.  “Let’s go, daylight’s burning.”  They followed him out and across the playground in the center of the ring of buildings to one of the large barns.  The doors were already open and a truck was backed in.

“Alright.  Judy,” started Stu, pointing, “start with the blueberries.  Seven crates.  Then seven crates of Rutabagas.  Nick, you’re with me.  Twenty crates of carrots, five of blackberries.”

“Why does Jude get to carry the blueberries?” asked Nick, shooting Judy a grin.

“Because we need the crates full when they reach the truck, not empty,” quipped Stu without missing a beat, handing Nick the first crate of carrots.”

“Oh, I’m hurt, Stu, that’s profiling.”

“Nope, it’s smart.  I know foxes are partial to berries.”  Stu flashed him a gently mocking smile, taking the next crate. 

“In that case, you’re not allowed to help with the carrots, Papa Carrots.  Go on, shoo.  Go get some blackberries.”  Nick plunked his own crate atop Stu’s, then took both right out of the bunny’s paws.

Judy had to shake her head at the two as they loaded up the truck.  The banter just continued as they went, neither of them giving ground and neither taking offense.  It was good to see them getting along so well, and by the time the three of them climbed into the truck to drive out to the festival grounds they were all three roaring with laughter at whatever ridiculous story Nick was telling them.

It wasn’t a terribly long drive, and they reached the fairgrounds by mid-morning.  The festival would officially open around noon, so they had plenty of time to stock the Hopps Produce stand, and ended up standing around with nothing to do but talk while they waited for Judy’s siblings to arrive to take over.

“And so there I was, in the middle of Tundratown, in my boxers, with this obviously stolen television in my arms, and no earthly idea how I’d gotten there.  I’m talking complete blackout, and I’m cold and confused, and Judy runs around the corner yelling ‘run, Nick, run!’  I had no idea what was going on, so I just hauled ass toward home, television and all!”

“It took me and Wolford three hours to find him and figure out why the hell he’d gone home and why he was in his underwear,” laughed Judy.  “Bogo was _furious_ , he almost took Nick’s badge on principle.”

Stu stood from his stool at the stand laughing, tears in his eyes.  “And you just ran home?  All the way?”

“Yup,” replied Nick.  “Ran the whole way.  You wouldn’t believe the looks I got.  Afterward, Bogo yelled at me so loud that I thought he’d explode.  Then Judy kicked me around a bit, until I managed to tell her what happened.”

“It’s good to know she can whoop your tail when she needs to,” chuckled Stu, as their replacements arrived.  “Hey guys, everything’s set up for you.  Festival opens in five.  Nick, Judy, take the day.  I’ll see you at home.”  Stu wandered off still laughing.

David, Cole, and Samantha were from a younger litter than Judy, but all three were adults.  The boys were black and chestnut respectively and Samantha was white with black spots.  The boys greeted Nick and Judy both brightly, shouldering Nick roughly in good humor.  Samantha, on the other hand, gave Judy a tentative smile but gave Nick a wide berth as she approached, refusing to even meet his eyes.  Despite Samantha’s obvious tension, the boys made small talk with them until the festival officially opened.  Then they parted ways, Judy leading Nick along the main path.

“This used to be a lot smaller when I was a kid,” explained Judy as they went.  “It was really more of a ‘farmer’s market’ style event with some games, but it’s expanded a lot since then.”

“Well,” replied Nick easily, “it’s rustic but it looks fun.  Ooh.  I’ll make you a bet, Carrots.”  He draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her toward a shooting booth with pellet rifles and moving tin targets.  “Best shooter wins.  Loser buys the winner breakfast for a week when we get back to the city.”

Judy flashed him a smile, ducked out from under his arm, and ran to the booth.  “You’re on, Wilde.”  She paid the hare tending the booth five bucks for six shots, then took up the rifle, lined up a shot, and squeezed the trigger.  _Plink!_   One target was struck; then two, and three.  She missed the fourth and fifth shots, but struck the sixth, the tin duck falling over.  She’d lost, according to the rules of the booth, since she’d missed twice, but she wasn’t betting against the house.

“Beat that,” she said to Nick.  He smirked, paid for his shots, and took aim.  Nick struck once…twice…thrice…four times…five times…and finally landed a sixth solid shot.

“No fair, you cheated!”  Judy teased, pushing the fox as he picked out the stuffed animal he’d won.  He picked a large plush bunny.

“I qualified for the police sniper program at the academy, Fluff,” bragged Nick, offering her the plush.  She took it with a soft grin.

“Yeah yeah, keep talking.  Hey, go win me another stuffed animal.”

They wandered the festival for the better part of the afternoon, winning prizes and eating junk food.  When they finally decided to stop for the day, they made their way back to the Hopps Produce stand where they were informed they would not be needed for the breakdown of the stand that evening.  They decided then to walk back.  It was a few miles to get back to the farm, but they knew they could make it in only an hour or two and neither was worn out enough to protest the idea.

Nick, who was carrying all the prizes they’d won in a fabric bag he’d bought for purpose, cleared his throat significantly about half way home.

“So, this is a beautiful area.”  They were walking along a paved lane; on either side were crops, the tree line well away from them.  Judy sensed that the scenery wasn’t really what he wanted to discuss, though.

“Interesting way to open the conversation.”  She bumped him with her hip as they walked, and he smiled down at her.

“It’s true.  How much do you know about fox relationship, Fluff?”

Judy took a moment to really consider the question before replying.  “I did some research last night.  Female-dominated, slow-moving.  Monogamous .”

“Monogamous in every way, yeah.”

“That’s so weird,” commented Judy absently.  Nick gave her a look.

“You think so?”

“Well, I mean…”  Judy shrugged.  “I’m a bunny.  I was raised to believe that sex is something you share.  But I’m not a typical bunny.  I’m demisexual, so it’s different for me.”

Nick’s guarded expression faded, replaced by intrigue.  “What does that mean?”

“Demi?”  Judy shrugged again.  “I don’t experience sexual attraction at all, unless I have a very strong emotional connection with the person.  You’re the first mammal that’s ever gotten me interested in that way.”

“What if you met someone else that attracted you?”  Nick’s question was casual, but Judy could hear the hint of stress in it.

“Who could it possibly be?  I’m not this close to anybody else outside my family.  Prey don’t do it for me.  Most predators are too big for me.  Heck, _you’re_ probably too big for me, strictly speaking, but you’re small enough that it might work with a little patience.

“My point is, I don’t just…become close to people.  I’ve had friends before and this has never happened.  There isn’t anyone else.”

They were quiet for a minute while Nick thought about it.  She didn’t press him, and wasn’t annoyed by his hesitance.  She understood he’d have a difficult time with this.

“For the sake of argument.”  He peered down at her with a casual smile.  “Say you did find someone else.  Your culture says it’s okay to just…go have your way with them as long as you come back to me.”

“If we’re married.”

“If we’re married, yes,” conceded Nick.  “But my culture would forbid that entirely.  You get all bothered by someone else, you suck it up until you get home to your spouse and take it out on him.  How do we balance that, in the unlikely event that it happens?”

“This is heavy talk for a couple who hasn’t even decided to date yet, Nick.” 

He chuckled.  “I know.  And I also know your concern is entirely for me in that regard.”

Judy nodded.  It was true:  talking about marriage what-ifs this early wasn’t strange for bunnies.  Once they knew they were really in love—and she knew—it was as good as done.  But she’d learned fox courtship was quite long indeed.  She sighed and gave the question some thought before answering.

“ _IF_ that happened…big if…We’d talk about it.  You know they say communication is the key to any relationship.  We’d go over our options when it happened.  If you were okay with me pursuing that, that’s fine.  If not, we’d compromise.  Extra intimacy to make up for the added arousal, whatever we needed to do.  I wouldn’t go behind your back, Nick.”

“We’d discuss it?  Before anything was done?”

“Yes, we would.”

“Promise?”

A shiver ran down Judy’s spine.  She’d read about this when she was on her phone last night.  Foxes called it the Rule of Threes.  It was an artifact of ancient Karmic custom, and it said that any vow given three times was absolutely binding.  Any fox who broke a promise given three times would be shunned from their communities.

Judy stopped and turned to Nick.  He stopped as well and they locked eyes.

Judy took a breath.  “Three times I promise, Nick.  I will never betray you like that.”

He knew she understood the significance of it.  She could see it in his face as he stared at her, soul bared to her.  He was as naked to her now as he’d been in that cable car in the Rainforest District, and she smiled warmly at him.  After a moment, he smiled back at her, and they turned as one and began walking again.

“I know you need some time, Nick,” continued Judy after a moment.  “Fox courtship takes so much longer than bunny courtship.  I’ll wait for you.  As long as I need to.  You’re worth the wait.”

Nick didn’t respond for a few minutes.  They walked in silence, and she was beginning to think he wouldn’t respond at all when he took a contented breath.

“My mother was friends with my dad for around three years before they started dating,” said Nick casually.  “They dated for about a month after that before they got married.  That’s the thing, Fluff.  The long part is getting to know the person, becoming best friends, and deciding they’re worth your life.  Once you’re sure of that and you start dating…you just have to become accustomed to the new dynamic before you marry.”

“Three years, huh?  I suppose I can wait that long.  You’ll have to meet me half way though.  PDA will be a thing, I promise you.”

Nick shook his head.  “Heh.  You misunderstand.  How long have we known each other?”

“I dunno.”  Judy thought about it for a second.  “Little over two years, I guess.  Met during the missing mammals case.  Couple months later, we busted Bellwether.  Nine months academy training for you.  And you’ve been on the force officially for a little more than a year.”

“Right,” said Nick brightly.  “Two years and change.”

It took Judy a moment to understand, and when she did her ears stood tall and she did a hop of excitement.  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

He chuckled at her.  “Two years isn’t unheard of for foxes, Fluff-butt.  So what do you think?  Think you can put up with me?”

Judy’s grin was quite wide indeed and she tossed an arm around his waist.  “I think I can handle that, Scruffy.”  By now they had reached the driveway leading to the big house at the Hopps Compound.  Bonnie and a dozen of Judy’s siblings and nieces and nephews were milling around on the long front porch, and had noticed them approach. 

Nick stopped, pulled away from Judy, and then knelt in front of her, bringing his face to her level.  He hesitated only a second, no fear or embarrassment in his eyes, and gently cupped Judy’s face in his paws.  Judy in response grabbed his shirt and pulled him to her, and they kissed in front of everyone.  It wasn’t a great kiss; they were both new to kissing, and they weren’t sure how to make their muzzles cooperate, but he tasted like blueberries and his touch was gentle.

When they parted, Nick chuckled again, grinning widely.  “And here I thought you’d know what you’re doing.  You’re a worse kisser than I am.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a great kisser by bunny standards, you philistine,” lied Judy with a punch.  They both laughed.  “We’ll work on it.  We have plenty of time to practice.”

They turned to continue through the last hundred meters or so to the house, and neither of them missed how brightly Bonnie was beaming at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've upgraded the rating of this story due to very frank discussions of sexuality and the possibility of soft smut in the future. No promises there, and I'll try to remember to make a note of it at the start of the chapter if I do go there. 
> 
> I think this is the longest single chapter I've ever written. I think I did well with it. What do you guys think?


	4. Antagonism

The news of Nick and Judy’s new relationship spread through the warren like wildfire.  It seemed to Nick only minutes after Bonnie hugged them both with a squeal of excitement after they returned that there were bunnies giving him looks entirely different from the ones he’d been getting before.  Nick had noticed since he’d been here that he’d been receiving three distinct looks from the Hopps children.  Some were excited to meet someone new, someone not a bunny, someone from the city who had teeth sharp as knives.  Among these were the Hopps parents themselves, as well as the melanistic doe named Susan, with whom Nick had interacted very little but liked well enough.  Others regarded him with a certain distant intrigue, as if they were curious to see what he’d do and what he was worth but didn’t want to make a judgment call yet.  Judy’s young nephew Hillary, a spry little cinnamon-colored buck from Samantha’s first litter, was one such bunny, gazing at Nick from wherever he happened to be with large amber soulful eyes, absorbing everything Nick said and did silently and without judgment or fanfare.

Then there were the others.  They were few, the ones with glares.  They tended to collect together, those who bore suspicion in their eyes and antipathy in their unconscious moves to shield their vital areas from Nick’s gaze.  Those like Samantha, the spotted black-and-white doe with Judy’s eyes, she who stared hesitantly at Judy like her sister was playing with fire and who glared at Nick like she might glare at a burglar or a wannabe rapist.

Since their return to the warren after attending the festival and very publicly sharing their first kiss, there was a fundamental shift.  Nick could see the divide occurring before his eyes as more and more rabbits learned the news.  Those who had been excited by his presence grew ever more excited, Bonnie and Stu still right in the front with them.  Susan positively beamed at Judy whenever they were in the same room together and Nick overheard the parents whispering about weddings and rituals and the Hopps Register.

Meanwhile the middle group had begun to splinter.  Some of them had joined the “good guys,” some continued to be wary, and others began to associate with the hostile ones.  Hillary seemed to have joined the good guys, at least nominally.  He hadn’t spoken to Nick yet, but he had smiled at him and spent time talking to others in the good group.

The hostile ones, however, only got worse.  If there had been any apathy among them at all with regards to Nick, the news of his relationship with Judy seemed to have fixed it.  Their gazes were utterly hostile toward Nick now, promising bodily harm if he gives them a reason.  Samantha, who seemed to be the ringleader of that faction, looked at Judy with a sorrow that spoke to the idea Judy had declared her intent to hang herself, and at Nick like he’d tied the noose.  In fact, such was the hostility that Samantha was the only one who didn’t flee the room—often with “accidental” collisions with Nick along the way—the moment Nick entered a room.  Samantha instead seemed to take on the role of guardian, keeping a careful and watchful eye on Nick when he and Judy were in the same room together.

Such was the difference in atmosphere from yesterday to today that Nick’s earlier feeling of belonging and acceptance was gone, replaced by the stifling pressure of conflict.  Darkness was falling and most of the Hoppses who lived or were currently staying in the Hopps Compound had returned from the festival.  Dinner, thanks to the festival, was a very informal “feed yourself” affair as was apparently normal during this time every year, and as he was not hungry Nick wandered out to the back porch while Judy went to get something to munch on.  It was pleasantly warm, the heat of the day breaking in the post-dusk, and Nick took a minute to enjoy the unexpected loudness and sweet scents of the rural area. 

From his vantage point he could see the playground and the ring of buildings, and not much else.  So after a minute, Nick strolled across the playground with its swings and slides and other play equipment and passed between two barns.  He leaned on the back side of one of the produce barns, which was really the front side facing the fields, and looked over the landscape for a few minutes.  It really was quite a beautiful place.  With the light of the gibbous moon, Nick could easily see the carrot fields, and blueberry fields, and rutabagas, in various stages of growth or harvest.  Across the fields, half a mile away, was the tree line.  The forest was thick and dark, and seeing it even that far away sent a thrill of adrenaline through Nick.  He’d never really understood what it was about the forest that put him so on edge, but it did.  Even this close was somewhat too close for comfort.

The solitude, however, was very welcome.  He studiously ignored the forest and gazed at the stars above him, letting the sound of the deserted farm wash over him, taking the stress of the evening away.  Judy would be looking for him soon, he knew, and that was okay.  She’d find him or she’d text him when she couldn’t, and he’d rush to her side as he always had and always would.

He stood there leaned against the rough wood of the barn wall for only five minutes when he heard footsteps come up behind him from the house.  He could already smell her.  It was the subtle floral-grassy smell he’d learned to associate with bunnies, but with a bite of fruity perfume and sweet lingering arousal he’d never known Judy to wear. 

“I like this place,” said Nick calmly without looking to the corner where she was approaching.  “The stars are more beautiful than I’ve ever considered they could be.  You don’t see them very well in the city.”

She came up beside him and leaned up against the barn in a similar pose as Nick, ankles crossed; where Nick had his paws in his pockets, however, her arms were crossed defensively across her chest.  She didn’t respond to him.

“I didn’t expect to find this place as peaceful as I do,” continued Nick.  “Even with the forest so close.”

She glanced at him.  He could see her ears were flat against her head in his peripheral vision.  She’d understood he hated forests; that was fine, he’d meant for her to.  She still didn’t reply, and they stood in silence for a few minutes as Nick examined the stars and she examined Nick.

Finally, Nick looked down at her, the violet eyes a contrast against her mostly-white face with the black splotch along the right side of her jaw.  Nick didn’t frown, and he didn’t smile, and he was surprised to see the lack of hatred in the doe’s face.

“Why are you here, Samantha?”

She looked away, gazing at the forest.  “I wanted to talk to you.”  If he didn’t know better, Nick would have swore the tone was conversational.  But how could it be, when she clutched that knife so tightly in one hand?

“Okay,” replied Nick easily, looking to the forest as well.  She fiddled with the knife for a moment, then passed it to Nick.  He took it and looked at it.  One end was a large loop of steel, big enough for a bunny finger to fit through comfortably.  Below that was a handle of tightly-wrapped cord, and then a circular claw-shaped blade a couple inches long, the cutting edge on the inside of the curve and razor sharp, and the point like a needle. 

“It’s called a karambit,” she said, still in an even and conversational tone.  “It’s a traditional rabbit weapon; we designed it after fox and cat claws thousands of years ago.  We’re good runners and we have a nasty bite, but…with one of those, we’re more than a match for any predator.  Someone knows how to use one of those, they can do a level of damage no doctor can fix, and in only a split second.”

Nick hefted the karambit a bit, testing its balance and weight, then he extended his claws from their hidden pockets in his paws and compared the shapes.  Nick nodded and passed it back to her.

“I believe you.  It’s an elegant weapon.  How long have you trained with it?”

She glanced at him, surprise in his face.  “How do you know I’ve trained?”

“It’s not hard to tell,” grinned Nick amicably.  “You walk on the balls of your feet, which is good for balance and keeps that metatarsal hard thanks to the stress of weight.  You angle yourself for defense, no matter who you’re with.  When you enter a room, you look at all the exits.  When you see someone you hate—someone like me—you look at them with an eye for the load-bearing joints and weapons carried.  You have exceptional balance and physical dexterity, even for a rabbit.  And finally, none of your clothing is loose or flowing enough to use as a handhold against you.”

“You see a lot.”  She looked back to the forest, though there was a certain tension in her pose now.  “I’ve been learning Seni gayong for ten years, among other martial arts.  I dabbled in jujutsu as well.”

Nick glanced back at her out of the corner of his eye.  Seni gayong was a traditionally lagomorph martial art he knew little about, but jujutsu was originally a fox tradition and one he’d dabbled in as well.

“Are you going to kill me, Samantha?”  Nick remained relaxed and amiable, betraying no tension or fear.  He knew, though, that if he had to fight this rabbit he would not walk away easily.

“I might,” replied Samantha.  “You’re not welcome here, Nick.  You’ve made some of my family fall for your ‘good guy’ demeanor, but some of us know better.  My parents are great people, but they’re not terribly bright.  I mean, they started working with a fox, and now they’re letting one _in our warren_. 

“I realize Judy likes you.  I don’t pretend to know why, but I realize she does.  And I also know that what she’s doing with you is dangerous.  Judy is my favorite sister, Nick, and I will not allow you to hurt her.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Sam.”  Nick turned his head fully to look at her, his expression utterly serious.  “I want nothing but good for Judy.  I’ll never hurt her.  I can’t.  I’ll never do anything with her that she doesn’t want me to do.”

Samantha slipped her karambit into the proper blade-down grip and looked impassively back at Nick.  “Judy is a rabbit, Nick.  She’s prey, and you’re a predator.  It’s in your nature to hurt us.  And even if it wasn’t, she _can’t_ consent to intimacy of any kind with you.  Every time you touch her, it’s abuse.  Even if she thinks she wants it, it’s abuse.  It’s called Stockholm Syndrome, you’ve brainwashed her into thinking she wants it.  That’s rape, Nick.  And I warn you now:  if you continue to hurt my sister I will put a stop to it.”

She heaved herself off the wall and took a backward step from him.  “Go home, Nick.  Tonight.  Right now.  If you hurt my sister, I’ll kill you.”

A weight settled in his gut as she spoke the words for the third time.  Though she didn’t realize it, couldn’t have known, she’d bound them together in her oath.  For Nick would not—could not—abandon Judy.  And if he didn’t, Samantha would come after him.  Nick watched Samantha retreat away from him and round the corner, and when she was gone he sighed heavily. 

He had just been put in a very difficult position.  On one paw, he knew Judy’s feelings were genuine and most of her family seemed content to let their relationship happen.  On the other, if they did continue into this Samantha and her faction would move to harm Nick.  He’d be completely justified morally and legally in reporting the threat, or even defending himself with any force required should they attack him, but the conflict very well could rip the family apart.

He could not imagine Stu would look past him killing one of his daughters, even in self-defense.

Nick was at a loss as to what he should do.  In moments like these, which didn’t come often if he did say so himself, he liked to meditate on the matter in hopes he’d have a dream or vision that would help him work through the problem.  And that’s what he chose to do now.  He went back to the house, walked downstairs, and grabbed a small velvet bag from his suitcase, which he brought back outside.  It took him only a moment to find a good spot for it off out of the way a few dozen yards from the buildings, and he pulled his tools out of the bag:  A brass censer, a disk-shaped charcoal puck, a lighter, and a bag of powder blended from acacia, angelica, cardamom, sage, and violet. 

He sat cross-legged with the censer before him, and lit the charcoal inside it, and when it was hot a hefty spoonful of the powder went onto the coal where it blackened and began putting out a thick whitish sweet-smelling smoke that washed over Nick.  He let his breath deepen, inhaling the smoke and watching the coils weave unknowable patterns in the air as his mind slipped into the unfocused meditative state.  In only a few minutes his awareness of what was around him sharpened and dulled simultaneously, his vision tunneling to include only the smoke roiling up from the coal, and he fell into the embrace of semi-consciousness.

_The woods were cool and dark, but not frightening.  That was how he knew She was near:  he was not scared of the thick forest around him.  Nick walked through the trees for awhile listening to the buzz of insects and the burbling of a stream nearby, and he was at peace for a time._

_Eventually, a figure came through the darkness.  She was smaller than he was, and on all fours.  The rusty fur was sleek and in Her yellow eyes a keen intellect and subtle humor could be seen.  The feral fox trotted to him, veering away to circle around at the last moment.  Nick watched Her circle without turning, and She finally came to a stop ahead of him and to his left, sitting on Her haunches.  They stared at one another for a time, eyes locked, and finally a wide grin split Her face._

_“It’s been a long time since you’ve sought me out, Nicky,” said Karma quietly.  “I’ve missed your vibration.”_

_Nick settled into a comfortable crouch against the trunk of a tree.  “I’m self-reliant.  I don’t like asking for help.  I still do your work, though.  You put Judy in my path, didn’t you?  You were daring me to return to you.”_

_“I did my duty, as you do yours.”  She whipped Her tail around Herself and caught the end of it in Her mouth, where She started chewing on it idly._

_Nick sighed and smiled.  “You got help from Serendipity.”_

_The sparkle in her eyes was all the confirmation he needed._

_“I don’t know what to do.  If I do one thing, I lose my love and destroy her own hope for happiness.  If I do the other, I rip her family apart.”_

_His plea was met with silence._

_“I have to strike a balance.  I don’t know how, though.”_

_The vixen before him shifted Her weight.  “How does one balance loss and hostility?”  Her question made Nick raise an eyebrow._

_“Exactly,” replied Nick._

_“What is most important against a hostile force, Nicky?”_

_He thought about it for a minute.  Then, “…knowledge.”_

_“And how does one acquire knowledge?”_

_Nick nodded.  He believed he understood._

_“Never forget, Nicky, these bunnies are different from us.  Their ways are not our ways.”_

_“I can’t expect them to follow my traditions.  I have to follow theirs.”_

_“You are not a rabbit, Nick.  And she is not a fox.”  Nick nodded again, though he wasn’t certain he understood.  Karma stared into him, chewing on Her tail, and in Her yellow eyes he saw compassion and wisdom.  She had given him the path; he had only to find it._

A paw touched his shoulder gently, and jarred Nick out of sleep.  He was disoriented at first, looked wildly around to find himself outside away from the buildings.  Suddenly he reoriented:  he had been meditating, and had fallen asleep.  His censer lay long cold, and the moon’s position told of him being out here for more than an hour.

“Nick, are you okay?”  Judy knelt next to him and rubbed a paw along his back. 

Nick nodded and started to gather his tools.  “Yeah yeah, I’m fine, Fluff.”  He smiled at her as he stood with his velvet bag.

“If you were feeling crowded you should have said something,” chided Judy.  “Nobody would blame you.”

Nick put an arm around Judy’s shoulders and pressed her to his side tightly for a moment. 

“Some don’t want me here, sweetheart.”

She drew away and frowned at him.  “Who?”

“…you haven’t noticed?  Samantha.  Some others.  She’s given me an ultimatum.  Leave tonight and don’t bother you anymore, or….”

The confused look on Judy’s face curdled into anger.  “Or _what_.”

“She’s very skilled with a karambit,” sighed Nick, starting to walk toward the house.

Judy followed, keeping up.  “I won’t let that happen, Nick.  If she can’t see how I feel about you, she doesn’t deserve to be part of it.”  Nick snorted.

“Didn’t you know, Carrots?”  He spread his arms wide, grinning sarcastically.  “You’re incapable of wanting to be with a nasty ol’ pred like me.  You only think you want me because I’m manipulating you.”

Fury and insult crossed her face and she started to storm off.  “I’m going to go give her a piece of my mind,” snarled Judy.  Nick grabbed her by the wrist, though, pulling her to a stop, and she looked back at him like she wanted to hit him for daring to stop her.

“Don’t,” murmured Nick seriously, drawing Judy closer to him.  “Please.  I will not allow your family to be torn apart because of me.”

“What do you expect to do, Nick?”  Judy jerked her arm from his grip, but she didn’t step away, maintaining the inch of space between them, glaring up into his eyes indignantly.  “Let them drive you away?  Let them decide who I get to be with?”

When Nick shook his head and put one paw on the side of her face, the ill feelings fell away from her countenance, replaced with sadness.  She put her own paw over his.  “I don’t want to lose you over speciesism, Nick.”

“You won’t, Judy.”  He dipped his head and kissed her lightly at the corner of her mouth.  “I’ll fix this.  I’ll win her over.  At least enough to stop this hostility.”

The worry was plain in Judy’s face.  “How, Nick?”

Nick smiled.  “I need an informant,” he said.  “Someone who knows Samantha very well, and who is well-versed in rabbit culture.  Someone who is willing to tell me what I need to know.  Can you think of someone like that?”

A wide smile crossed Judy’s face and she nodded.  “I think I know just the one.  Some daft doe who decided it was smart to be a cop.  She’s just crazy enough that she might be willing to talk.”

“A bunny cop, huh?  I bet she’s cute.”  Nick laughed when Judy punched him in the ribs.  “Lead the way, Carrots.  Let’s hash this out so we can put an end to this.”  She took his paw in hers and led her into the house and to her room, where they began to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there's the conflict...I hope that doesn't turn people off of the story. Anyway, here's the new chapter at long last. I realize it's been almost two weeks, and I'd like to apologize for that. Please don't hesitate to comment if you have something to say!


	5. Solutions and Understanding

Nick and Judy spoke quietly in her room for the better part of an hour.  During this time they exchanged many ideas, most of which were vetoed for a variety of reasons, but eventually Judy made a breakthrough.  They had been sitting quietly for a couple minutes when Judy spoke slowly.

“Nick…”  She looked hard at the carpet between them and shifted in her cross-legged position on the floor.  “You said you want this to be balanced.  Neither fox nor bunny, and both at the same time.”

“Uh-huh,” replied Nick, popping a strawberry in his mouth.

“Well…we’ve tried to come up with all kinds of original ideas, but let’s get really simple.”  She looked up at him.  “What would a fox community do in this case?”

“Doesn’t apply,” said Nick.  It was the same thing he’d said half an hour ago to a similar question.

Judy gave him a flat look.  “Nick, don’t be stupid.  Humor me, okay?”

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly.  “Okay.  Humoring.  If a fox issues a death threat to another over a relationship, the _legal_ solution is to report the threat.  But the _traditional_ solution is ritual combat.  The one who made the threat sets the location and time, the one who was threatened sets the weapons, type of combat, and winning condition.  Winner decides how to settle the dispute.”

Judy gazed at him in thought for a moment.  “Well…if it were rabbits, the families would hold a conference.  All legally-adult members of the nuclear family of both individuals come together and the situation is discussed.  The group decides how to solve the problem by consensus and the matter is dropped.”

“That sounds…an awful lot like your family living your life for you,” said Nick dryly.

“Yes, well,” replied Judy, “when you have families as large as ours living with each other nicely is often more important than personal satisfaction.  Why do you think I was unpopular as a kitten?”

“Mmm.”  Nick nodded his understanding.  “So what’s your proposal?”

Judy grinned.  “Hold a Hopps Conference.  Subject of debate:  the terms, location, and time of this ritual combat.”

Nick stared at her for a moment blankly.  “That…actually has a certain elegance to it.  But what if your family’s terms are maiming or death or something?”

That flat look returned to Judy’s face.  “Nick.  We’re bunnies.  Not wolves.”

“…this is true.  Let’s do it, what’s the worst that could happen?”

They stood and went out into the hall to find Bonnie and Stu, and found Samantha leaning against Nick’s door.  Her arms were crossed, and she was flanked by two of their siblings, a cream-colored buck named Harold and a white doe whose name Nick couldn’t remember.

“Are you done?” asked Samantha flatly.

Judy crossed her own arms and settled her face into a glare.  “I call for a Hopps Conference to settle our dispute.”

Sam’s face went slack and she blinked at Judy for a long moment. 

“What?” said the white doe.

“She can’t do that,” continued Harold.

“B-but he’s not a bunny,” stammered Samantha. 

“Take it up with Dad,” smirked Judy.  The scowls returned: everyone knew who Stu would side with.

“Fine.  Let’s go.”  The trio of hostile rabbits turned on their heels and stalked off; after a moment, Judy and Nick followed.  They were led, to no great surprise, to the great room where Bonnie and Stu were currently pouring over legal documents of some kind.  They looked up smiling when they saw they were being sought after, but the smiles fell when they saw who it was.

“Gods above, Sam,” grumbled Bonnie, “what do you want now?  I’ve already told you I’m not calling the police on Nick.”

“ _Judith_ ,” spit Sam, “has decided to call a Hopps Conference.  To resolve our conflict with Nick.”

“Nick’s not a rabbit, honeybun,” replied Bonnie with a confused tone. 

“I _told you_ ,” said Sam, whirling on Judy.

Stu put a paw lightly on Bonnie’s shoulder.  “But he _is_ in a relationship with one.  Tradition is a bit vague there.  I’d say he has a right to participate in this.”

Bonnie considered it for a moment, then nodded.  “I suppose you have a point there, dear.  Let me call everyone up.”  She bustled off, leaving Sam to gape at her in betrayal.

“No! You can’t do that!” 

“I think you’ll find,” said Stu rather grumpily, “that I can do that.  I’m the oldest able-bodied Hopps in the core line, the right to make that decision lies squarely with me.”

Sam glared at everyone around her for the next forty-five minutes while every sibling of Sam’s and Judy’s that was over eighteen gathered in the great room.  Eventually everyone managed to congregate in a loose semicircle around Judy, Nick, Bonnie, Stu, and Sam.  There were nearly a hundred of them, and would have been more—as Bonnie whispered to Nick as the crowd gathered— if it hadn’t been for the fact that most of her children were in warrens of their own and wouldn’t be able to make it in time to help settle things.

Once everyone was gathered, Stu as Hopps Elder, spoke.  “Sam has leveled accusations against Nick Wilde, and Judy calls for arbitration.”  He looked over to Judy and Nick.  Judy started to speak but Nick gently restrained her, and nodded to Sam.  Sam had the grace to look surprised and grateful for being allowed to speak first, and she stood straighter.

“Nick,” she said to the assembled rabbits, “has decided to enter in a relationship with Judy.  Predators have positions of power over us and thus any action he takes with her is abuse.  I call for banishment, and have leveled threats of violence against him.”

The crowd immediately began to grumble amongst themselves, but a subtle clearing of Bonnie’s throat quieted them down again.  Sam looked at Judy, and Judy began to speak.

“I’m an adult with all my mental faculties intact, and I have no intention to let fear and bigotry stop me from seeking happiness wherever I might find it.  Nick is the only mammal I’ve ever found attractive, and the first with whom I’ve fallen in love.  Samantha asks that I be denied that experience simply because Nick has sharper teeth.  I refuse her judgment and ask to be allowed to pursue my love life.”

The fluffle managed to keep quiet.  So quiet, in fact, that Nick could hear some of them clear their throats.

He became abruptly aware that every bunny in the room was staring at him expectantly.  His eyes widened.

“Uh-um wha…what?  I know I’m sexy, but you don’t need to stare.”  More than half of them—including Stu—snorted in amusement.  Judy, on the other hand, put her face in her paw.

“Nick,” said Judy embarrassedly, “sweetie, they’re waiting to hear your statement.”

“Oh.”  Nick cleared his throat.  “Right.  I was testing you guys.  Making sure you remembered the procedure.  Um…you passed. 

“Anyway.  I have no intention to hurt anyone here.  I don’t intend to break this family apart, but I won’t let misunderstandings ruin my own happiness forever.  Now, I’m not a rabbit.  As Sam has tried to make plain, I shouldn’t be held to your traditions.  The problem is, Samantha is not a fox, so she shouldn’t be held to fox traditions.”

“Our proposal,” continued Judy when Nick looked over at her, “is to blend both traditions.  Foxes would settle this dispute with a trial of combat; the winner decides how to proceed, and the loser is honor-bound to oblige.  The fluffle will decide the location, time, weapons, combat type, and winning condition.”

It was fascinating to watch it happen.  With very little actually said, messages passed through the hundred bunnies assembled before them very quickly.  It was almost as if they were communicating telepathically, and Nick was utterly lost.  After only a few minutes, Susan the melanistic bunny with teal eyes stepped forward.

“The fluffle agrees, but stipulates that we decide the wagers as well.”

Nick shrugged at Judy’s questioning glance.  Seemed logical to him.  Samantha shrugged as well.

“Fair,” said Judy. 

The flurry of rapid-fire subvocal communication resumed; it lasted several more moments this time, and finally Susan, apparently the spokesbunny, stepped forward again.

“We’ve made a decision.  Combat will be unarmed martial arts; no killing, no crippling.  If someone dies or is crippled, the other forfeits the match.  Combat continues until someone surrenders or is rendered unconscious.  Winner is left standing.  If Samantha wins, Nick leaves Bunny Burrow, neither Nick nor Judy speak to each other again unless the communication is strictly professional, and Judy is asked politely to consider a bunny next time.  If Nick wins, he and Judy may continue in peace, Nick is invited back to Bunny Burrow if and when he gets the chance, and Samantha is invited to stuff herself.”

A buck by Susan’s shoulder cleared his throat at Susan with a look.  Susan rolled her eyes.

“…I meant, Samantha is invited to study their relationship and help them solve any problems they can’t solve alone, so as to better understand what Judy has with Nick.”

The appalled look on Samantha’s face was priceless.  After a moment, though, Sam gritted her teeth and nodded.

“Agreed.”

Nick and Judy shared a look, and then they both nodded at the same time.

“Time and location?” Judy asked.

“First thing in the morning,” said Susan, “at the bend in Lizard Creek.”

Nick understood that something was wrong the moment Susan said the words because Sam uttered a cry of triumph and Judy closed her eyes and sighed.  He didn’t push for information, however, and stood around with Judy and her parents as everyone else dispersed.  It’d grown late, so most of them were making their way to bed or going to put their own children to bed.

Once they were alone, Stu sighed and collapsed into an armchair in the corner. 

“Boy you kids have brought a load of trouble,” he sighed.  He put an arm around Bonnie when she sat next to him, and Nick was led to a sofa nearby by Judy.

“If I had known I’d be causing such a conflict—” started Nick, but Stu cut him off.

“You’d have never come down here,” said Stu, “and you and Judy would still only be friends.  Son, don’t apologize to us.  Samantha has never been known for her…tolerant nature.  In years past, we were content to nurture that attitude, but undoing the damage seems to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated.”

“My fear,” said Nick, “is that even if I manage to win Samantha over somehow the rest of her crowd will go after me.”

Judy shook her head and patted his arm.  “Not a problem.  Sam’s the most bigoted of the lot, and she’s always had a bit of a following among the younger of our siblings who do anything she says.  Most of ‘her crowd’ will just convert when she does.  They don’t care what the belief is, as long as it’s Sam’s.”

“That…sounds a lot like high school,” said Nick.

“Most of them _are_ in high school,” said Bonnie.  “Besides, with a crowd of bunnies that large you’re bound to get a few who don’t have a leadership bone in their bodies.”  Nick conceded the point, and the conversation drifted to more exciting matters such as the proper care of timothy hay crops in the early stages of growth. 

Eventually Judy noticed Nick’s attention drifting and extricated them from the conversation, leading him downstairs for bed. 

“I never knew carrots were candy to bunnies,” muttered Nick as they went down the stairs.  Judy chuckled at him.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about rabbits,” she said.  “I bet you don’t even know what a chew stick is.”

Nick shot her a raised eyebrow.  “A chew stick.  Like tobacco?”

“Gods no.”  Judy reached the landing and pulled a face.  “No, chew sticks are flavored willow dowels.  Or sometimes hard snack sticks.  We chew on them to wear our teeth down.”

Nick stopped at the corner, and Judy bumped into him thanks to the sudden stop.  “Wear your teeth down?  What in the world would you do that for?”

“Rabbit teeth,” came a different voice from down the hall, “continue to grow all the time.  Dumbass.”  When Nick looked over, he saw Susan leaning against his door; it was unpleasantly reminiscent of Samantha from earlier.  She lifted herself off the door and approached them.  “You claim to love my sister but you don’t even know the basics about rabbits?”

“Well, you know, it’s more fun when you fly by the seat of your pants,” retorted Nick.  Susan stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing, punching Judy.

“I can see why you like him, Jude,” she said, smiling.  “Almost a pity I’m straight.  I’d have to borrow him.”

“You’d have to get in line,” said Judy.  “You’re only the eighth to say so.”

“Wow, really?  Who?”  Susan looked legitimately surprised, and Judy grinned at her, Nick apparently having been forgotten.

“Bobbie, Jace, the Kay twins, triple-A’s, and Hayley.”

“Triple-A’s?  What, all three?”

“All three.  No lie.”

Nick coughed conspicuously, and Judy shot him a contrite look.

“Sorry, Nick.”

“I’m not,” said Susan.  “That blush is adorable.  Totally worth it.  Anyway, I wanted to talk to you, Nick, if that’s okay.”

Nick shrugged and looked at Judy.  Judy smiled encouragingly and nudged him in Susan’s direction, winked at him, kissed Susan on the cheek, then went to her bedroom.

“So….um.”  Nick drawled awkwardly.  Susan giggled.

“Don’t worry, sexy,” she teased.  “I’m strictly a rabbit buck only type of doe.  You’re safe from me.  Kathryn and Kelly, though…the twins are known for their ah…‘persistence.’”

“Persistent can be good,” replied Nick.  “Not sure that applies _here_ ….  Anyway, what did you need?” 

In response, Susan glanced at Judy’s closed door, put an arm around Nick’s waist, and led him further down the hall away from Judy.  Then, she put her paws in her pockets.

“First I’d like to apologize for Samantha.  Nobody else seems to notice how well you’re handling this, or how much this means to you, and I wanted you to know that I do.”

“I’m just a big ball of fluff when you get to know me,” snarked Nick.  Susan frowned.

“Don’t do that, Nicholas.”  She shook her head, and her black ears fell.  “You may be able to get away with the humor as a distraction with everyone else, but I see through it.  Have enough respect for yourself to be straight with me.”

Nick’s casual grin fell away and was replaced with a distinctly unsettling twist in his gut.  He didn’t like being subjected to such piercing scrutiny.

“Is this what it feels like when I do that?  Look through mammals and see them for what they are?”

“What?” asked Susan.  “That sensation that maybe you’re a bit too exposed?  Yeah.”

“…no wonder they don’t like it.”  He fidgeted with his tie.  “You shouldn’t have to apologize for your sister, Susan.  But…it’s nice knowing someone is on my side.  For a long time it was just me…and then me and Judy.  My fan club is growing, I guess.”

Susan nodded.  “You’re a good mammal, Nick, don’t let anyone tell you different.  Serendipity knows what she’s doing.”

“I thought you worship Diana,” commented Nick.  It was a statement, not an accusation.

Susan shrugged.  “Sure.  Doesn’t mean I don’t believe in Saren.  She gets worship from thousands of bunnies, my little voice isn’t missed.  My point was, you’ve been put in Judy’s path and it’s led to good.  Do you have any idea how lonely Judy used to be?  I’m ten minutes older than her, we grew up together.  She’s always been one of my favorites, but Judy has always been really isolated.  People didn’t like her, because she was different. 

“In high school, she was invited to Junior Prom by Chaz Wiggin.  One of the most popular bucks in school.  He picked her up and dropped her off at the Bunny Burrow courthouse and told her that’s where she belonged, not ‘in a dress too pretty for her.’

“She walked home.  A ten mile walk in the dark.  And when Senior Prom came around, she didn’t even go.  She was too ashamed, too afraid.  Three people invited her, and she turned them all down because they couldn’t have really meant it.  Justified it by saying she was too focused to bother with such frivolous things.  ‘A bunny can’t become a cop based on how well she wears a pretty dress,’ she said.  But I heard her crying that night when we were all supposed to be at after-parties.  I’d snuck home to get condoms, and she never knew I heard her.”

Nick had been growing progressively more somber as Susan continued.  She seemed to be rambling, but the words drove home just how badly he’d misunderstood Judy when they met, how badly he _continued_ to misunderstand her.  His dumb, sly, beautiful bunny was much more scarred than he’d ever given her credit for.  And she bore it all with enthusiasm she perhaps didn’t feel.

“I didn’t know any of that,” admitted Nick quietly.

“Then you didn’t look hard enough,” said Susan.  “Or didn’t ask the right questions.  You know how many times I’ve seen Judy smile and mean it since we started to grow up?  Twice.  The day she graduated the academy…and today, when you kissed her.  Judy has never wanted anyone else.  She’s craved belonging but nobody was good enough.  Even those very few canines she found emotionally appealing weren’t enough, because who could ever love a stupid little bunny who thinks she can be a cop?  And who would want to be with a bunny, of all mammals, who has no interest at all in sex?”

The questions were rhetorical, but Susan pierced Nick with a heavy stare for a long moment to drive the point home.

“She chose _you_ , Nick,” continued Susan after a minute.  “Some of us can’t seem to handle it, but Judy has been alone for so many years.  Since we were nine and she decided to be a cop.  In a crowd of family, she’s stood isolated by her dreams.  And for her, it was always enough.  The dream was enough.  And impossibly, she fulfilled that dream.

“You’re so determined to keep her family together, but Judy hasn’t had _family_ here since she was _nine_.  She has me, and she has Mom and Dad, and she has a couple others who have always been here for her.  Don’t you worry about Samantha and the others.  They don’t matter.  The ones who matter, us few who actually care about Judy enough to see who she really is?  We’re not going anywhere.

“You’re a hunter, Nick.  Like me.  You’re Karma’s own hunter.  I can see that Judy is your perfect prey and you’re her perfect predator.”

_You are not a rabbit, Nick.  And she is not a fox._ Karma’s words came back to him, accompanied by the sudden snap of epiphany.  He hadn’t seen the connection, wouldn’t have seen it even now save for Karma’s warning, but Nick understood. 

What was a more perfect expression of the blending of worlds than a rabbit devotee of a goddess of the hunt?  Therein lay his answers.

_Karma you clever bitch,_ thought Nick to himself.

Susan stepped close to Nick, right into his personal space, and Nick was struck by how very tiny she was.  Shorter than even Bonnie, Susan was nonetheless strong enough to draw Nick down to her level by his tie.  She placed a single gentle kiss on his cheek, and whispered the last of her message directly into his ear.

“You’re her new dream, Nicholas.  What’s yours?” 

Before he could recover, she was gone.

Nick stood in the hall for a long while thinking before he turned and went to Judy’s room.  The door was slightly open so he didn’t knock, and when he entered she looked up from the mirror over her dresser.  She was undressed and brushing out her fur.  Judy started to smile and greet him but it faltered as she saw his solemn expression.

He crossed the room and pulled her into an embrace, which she returned.

“Nick,” said Judy into his chest, “what’s wrong?  What did she tell you?”

“She told me enough,” said Nick.  “I love you, Judy.”  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and Judy stepped back to look up at him with a searching stare.  He smiled at her, and it seemed to help because she smiled back.

“I love you too, Nick,” she said.

His smile widened, and he kissed her softly between her ears.  Then, he stepped around her, grabbed her brush, and began gently brushing out her fur for her.

After a few moments, during which Judy wore a look of pleased surprise, Nick remembered.

“By the way…what’s up with the bend in Lizard Creek?”

Judy stiffened, and looked him in the eye through the mirror in front of them.  “Lizard Creek is a small river that goes through Bunny Burrow.  The bend we meant…is about a quarter mile into the woods at the edge of our property.  Deep enough that you can’t see the fields.  There’s a clearing inside where the creek loops around.”

Nick’s brushing faltered and his heart clenched.  “Oh.”

Nick really didn’t like forests.  They made him shake and his heart pounded.  Tomorrow would be…interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter contains a whole lot of dialogue and exposition. I'm sincerely hoping that's okay. Also, I want you guys to know that what I expected to take around fifteen hundred words took thirty-five hundred instead (this whole chapter). This chapter covers only half of what I expected it to. But that's okay. Makes for a nice cliffhanger ;)


	6. Resolutions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: This chapter contains some pretty dark elements. It gets really intense. If you are sensitive to the subject of assault or abuse in any form, please proceed with caution.

Samantha woke early as was her custom, and she got up carefully so as to not wake her husband.  If she woke him he’d want to talk or perhaps have sex and she was entirely uninterested this morning.  After all, she had more important things to do today.  Like…win a fight with a fox.  She lived with her mother still, as some bunny children did; after all, among farming rabbits families were large and the buildings housing them were equally so.  As a couple’s own children grew up and moved out, some would remain and help care for the older generation and maintain the housing.  Sam happened to be one of those who chose to remain. 

The first thing Sam did was walk down the hall from her fourth sub-floor bedroom to the room where her children slept.  She had only six, one from her first litter, three from her second, and two from her last.  Her oldest, Hillary, was awake and reading by the light of a small lamp at the desk in their communal room.  He looked very much like his father with his cinnamon-sugar colored fur and golden-amber eyes and dark muzzle.  He also took after his father in the realm of intelligence:  he was six and already reading at an eighth-grade level.

The only thing Hillary seemed to have inherited from his mother was a disconcerting ability to stare unblinkingly at someone as if he was seeing through to their soul, an ability Samantha herself shared with her older sister Susan.  An ability Hillary used to great effect on his mother when she peered in at him.  His siblings were as yet sleeping, and so he didn’t speak.  Wouldn’t have even if they had been awake, most likely, as he was typically a very quiet kitten.

They stared into each others’ eyes for a moment.  Then Sam glanced around at the others to make sure they were okay, smiled at Hillary, and stepped back out.  From there, Sam went to get ready for the day.  Once she was cleaned and dressed, she went upstairs to the kitchen for breakfast, where she found several of her siblings, her parents, Judy, and Nick. 

She could not miss the looks of outright hostility every one of her siblings gave her.  Nor could she miss the look of what could almost have been sympathy leveled at her from Nick.  She offered them all a passive glare and accepted a cup of dandelion tea from Mom.  By the time she turned back around to face the rest of the kitchen and grab a muffin, everyone but her parents, Judy, and Nick had left.

Sam sat on one of the bar stools at the counter and ignored Judy’s glare.  Nick sat across from her and folded his paws in front of him.

“You’ve earned a few enemies,” the fox said simply.

“No shit,” replied Sam.  “As if I couldn’t tell from the death-stares I got when I entered the room.  Since when is Alexander not on my side?  He was glaring at me right along with the others a minute ago.”

“Since he realized this morning that you literally implied I’m either brain-dead, masochistic, or both,” said Judy.  The statement caused Sam to look up sharply.  Not because of the words, but the tone:  it was a statement delivered hard as bedrock and cold as ice, a level of hatred in her voice Sam had never heard there before.  “Oh don’t give me that kicked-kitten look,” snarled Judy.  “You deserve everything you get from this.”

Nick glanced back at Judy, presumably to placate her.  Judy turned her look on him.  “Don’t start, Nick.  I gave you this chance, but that doesn’t mean I can’t voice my opinion.”  He shrugged and stood again.

“I’m ready to start whenever everyone else is.”  Nick walked out of the kitchen onto the back porch.  Judy set aside her own cup and walked out behind him, deliberately not looking back at Sam.

“You know,” said Bonnie calmly sipping on her tea, “your sister was never more happy than when she started getting close to Nick.  You’re asking her to throw away the one person who has ever supported her.”

“You don’t understand,” sighed Sam.  None of them understood, and it hurt her seeing Judy hate her so completely.  “But what’s done is done.  Let’s just get this over with so we can get back to normal around here.”

Stu stared at her, blinking.  “It astounds me that you think your life will go back to normal after this.”  Without another words, her parents left the room to go gather the witnesses for the fight.  Samantha stepped to the door leading to the porch and stopped short of stepping through, hearing Judy and Nick talking quietly.

“—be alright, Nick,” Judy was saying.  “I’ll be right there with you.  Deep breaths.  You’re better than your fear, you can overcome it.”

“Can I overcome it and still do this right?” replied Nick, the sound of concern plain in his voice.  The texture of his rich voice sent adrenaline through her body.  “I don’t know, Carrots.”

“Never let them see that they get to you, remember?”  Judy comforted the beast with truly genuine-sounding empathy.  “Hide it.  Pull it deep and don’t let it affect you.  You can do this.  Remember the chase in the Rainforest District last month?  You did great.  Do that again.”

“Yeah.  It’ll be fine.”  He didn’t sound very certain.

Sam opened the door and stepped out to see Nick leaning on the porch rail with his elbows planted on it and Judy running a paw up and down his back.  Nick looked back at Sam with an impassive gaze, and Judy’s face hardened and turned forward.

There they waited in awkward silence for a few minutes while a dozen or so of the fairest out of the fluffle from last night came to accompany them.  Finally they all started across the fields toward the forest.  As they reached the tree line, Nick hesitated and muttered something under his breath.  Close as Samantha had kept to him, she heard the plea.

“Loki Prince of Tricks, you really hold a grudge, don’t you?  It wasn’t enough that I served you for twenty years.”  He took a deep breath and, with Judy’s paw in his, stepped into the trees.

It took only a minute to find the clearing surrounding the bend in the creek.  It was round with water on three out of four sides, about twenty-five feet across.  Nick and Sam walked to the center, and the witnesses stood along the dry side of the loop. 

Dad stepped into the clearing.  “There’s been an amendment,” said the older buck.  “The fluffle met this morning and decided to revise the terms.  Given how quickly we were forced to do this, I allowed it.”

“Okay,” said Nick.  “What’s the change?”

“In addition to forfeiting the match should the rules be broken, the one who breaks the rules will be subject to prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, and will be asked to leave Bunny Burrow without contact or support from any remaining here for the rest of their days.  Any family, up to and including children, who live here will remain out of contact forever.  For all intents and purposes, that mammal will no longer exist.”  It was a testament to her father’s willpower that he would not look at her.  She saw the threat of tears in his eyes, heard it in his voice, but he was absolutely behind the fluffle’s decision. 

A weight of dread settled in Sam’s gut; she hadn’t anticipated this.  She’d anticipated Nick would refuse to report her threat and refuse to act in kind; she’d even anticipated it leading to something like this.  Her threat, so carefully crafted and delivered in just the right moment, ensured the action would be taken quickly enough to obfuscate her siblings’ clear thinking.

She did not foresee them going back on their original decisions, something that had never been done before.

Since she never intended to outright kill Nick—becoming a cop-killer was not a nice thing—she realized she’d have to be a great deal more careful in the execution of her plan.

There was a measure of relief in the fox’s face as he processed the news.  He’d understood, then, how one-sided the original decisions had been.  He was smarter than she gave him credit for.

Dad turned to them, pushed them apart until they were just out of striking range of each other, then stepped back to the group at the edge of the clearing.

“There’s no time limit,” said Dad, raising a paw over his head.  “No killing, no maiming.  Fight to submission or unconsciousness, winner still stands.”  He dropped his paw.

Before Dad’s paw had reached his waist, Sam had leaped forward snapping her strong foot at blurring speed directly forward and up, aiming to cave in his chest.  The force of the blow would have killed him had he not blocked her kick with paws crossed at the wrists knocking her back down.  She felt one of his wrists break, but the only sign he gave of the pain it must have felt was a sharp intake of breath.

“That’s _horseshit_ ,” yelled Judy.  Samantha could see her struggling to enter the clearing, held back by both their parents and two of their bigger brothers.  “That was a _killing_ blow, Sam, you _bitch._ ”

“Don’t,” called Nick calmly, gingerly feeling his left wrist.  “Do not interfere.”  He never took his emerald eyes off Sam.

“Nick, she’s trying to _kill you_!”

“Judith _Hopps_ ,” snapped Nick.  Sam noticed he was trembling, his breath coming quickly.  “Do not make me forfeit this match by interfering.  Please.  I know what I’m doing.”  Still his eyes didn’t stray, and Judy looked taken aback.

Then, he spoke directly to Samantha, softly.  Every bunny could hear him, but his words were for her alone.

“Because you didn’t intend to kill me just then.”  He started to step around Sam, and Sam matched his movements.  He was in a purely defensive posture, his eyes locked on Sam’s.  “Did you, Sam?  You knew I’d block that.”

Sam snapped forward again, attempting a flurry of blows with her paws and feet to his torso and face, none of them potentially fatal.  Nick blocked every one of them, the impacts of her limbs against his loudly audible, and still his eyes locked with hers, never straying even an inch from her face.  His trembling continued, and his tail whipped around behind him in an agitated manner.

Still he maintained a defensive posture.  Still he stalked around her, and still she matched his movement.

“I know you better than you think, Sam,” said Nick, his voice strong, if strained.  “I don’t want to be your enemy.”

Sam lashed out with  a high kick, her foot impacting the attempted block with enough force to still snap his head around, and Nick very nearly hit the ground.  In his attempt to recover his footing, he faced the deep forest…

…and _shuddered._ Every strand of fur on his body stood on end and his eyes pinched shut as if he’d seen Hell itself.

So shocked by the depth of his phobia was Sam that she didn’t even think to attack him while he gulped in a deep breath.  He found her eyes again, staring into her soul, by the time she’d realized he was vulnerable. 

She launched another flurry of blows, heavy strikes meant to cripple, and each one was batted down just barely in time by Nick.  Despite the barrage he’d already gone through he seemed to still have his full strength.  He was even powering through the pain in his wrist.  As his fur began to lie back down, it occurred to Sam that Nick’s muscles were really quite toned.

“I can see what you’re doing, Sam,” said Nick, his voice slightly hoarse.  “You keep attacking my vital areas.  Striking viciously, aggressively, at my sensitive points.”  His gaze bored into hers intensely.

“I’m trying to win, you bastard,” yelled Sam, winded. 

“No you’re not, you’re trying to provoke me.”

Sam stopped stepping around and looked at him in an entirely new way.  He stopped as well.

“You’re trying to provoke me,” repeated Nick softly.  “You’re trying to make me lose my temper, trying to make me lash out.  I can see it in your eyes.  You know I can destroy you, and you’re trying to force me to do exactly that.  Not once have you struck me with any kind of real intent to harm.  Not once.”

“I’ll show you no intent, asshole.”  Sam flung herself forward, attempting to lock herself around his arm.  The fancy term for it was Flying Armbar, a lock with which she could shatter every single joint in his arm from the shoulder down. 

Nick simply batted her out of the air, swatting her into the dirt like a fly. 

She gasped for breath, the impact on the ground having driven the air from her lungs, and sprang into a defensive stance, certain Nick was going to pounce.

He stood where he had been, gazing at her as if she were his own child.

“Who was it, Sam?”  The question was soft, and without any malice of any kind, and soft enough that only she could hear.  “Who did this to you?”  He took one small step forward. 

“Who left those claw scars on your neck?  The bite scars on your shoulder?”  For the first time since she kicked his face, his eyes left hers and tracked down to the lines in the flesh under her fur.  How he’d seen them, she would never know.

“Whatever animal did that to you deserves whatever hell you gave him, Sam,” continued Nick.  He took another small step forward.  “What was done to you is not your fault.”  She could smell the pungent musk coming off him, overpoweringly violet scent.  To most mammals, it would be overpoweringly unpleasant, too much to handle.  For Judy, it sent a spike of arousal.

For Sam, that deep heat was accompanied by a spike of adrenaline.  It made her remember.

“I know he lured you with sweet words, Sam,” whispered Nick.  “Whoever he was.  And when you were most vulnerable, he attacked you.”  Sam’s breath came in short gasps, no longer from a lack of oxygen but from emotion.  She was trembling as heavily as Nick was.

“Don’t,” said Sam as Nick stepped forward again.  It was a strangled sound, clouded with the emotion that was pressing hotly in her throat. “Don’t.  Stop.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Sam.”  Nick stopped his gradual advance, but he was already very much in her personal space.  He did not, however reach out to touch her.

“Your attraction was taken advantage of, but that doesn’t make it wrong.  It doesn’t make all foxes evil, either.  _See me_ , Samantha.  I will never harm you.”

He had dropped his defensive posture entirely.  The fox officer was utterly open to her; if she struck now, it would be devastating.

Instead, Samantha fell to her knees, tears flowing heavily.  Nick knelt next to her and gently laid one paw on her shoulder, on top of the bite.  All fight left her, and Sam collapsed into his infinitely tender embrace.

“You wanted to save her,” whispered Nick, softly enough that only she could hear.  “I understand.  You tried to save her, and for that I love you.”

Sam clutched at his bright shirt, her tears staining it dark.  “I’m sorry,” she cried.

“I know.  I forgive you.”

 

* * *

 

Nobody could hear what Nick said to her after Sam launched herself at him and he swatted her to the ground, but nobody could miss how completely Sam’s demeanor had changed.  She went from focused and furious to trembling and afraid, and then to a complete mess of sobbing emotion, clutching at Nick as if he were her only lifeline.  During that exchange, Judy went from enraged and wanting to tear her sister apart…to quietly confused, and more than a little proud that her fox had done it without hurting anyone.

Everyone heard the final exchange.  Sam cried her apology like the last words of a dying felon, anguish clear in her voice, and Nick’s forgiveness was unmistakably genuine.  He lifted her like he might a child, carrying her in his arms as she clutched onto him and sobbed into his chest.

“Nick…”  Judy started, softly, but Nick shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Judy,” said Nick softly, subdued.  “For snapping at you earlier.”  He walked past her through the trees carrying a bunny who ten minutes ago wanted to kill him, and Judy couldn’t help but notice how Nick gazed into the trees now without flinching.

Slowly, the witness rabbits began to follow him back to the house.  Over the next half hour, Stu busied himself with arranging things for the stand at the festival, and Nick took Samantha down to her room.  They sat in there with the door shut for a long time; eventually the sound of Sam’s crying gave way to tentative speech, and for several hours after, they talked.  Deep into the afternoon and well into the evening, Sam and Nick talked to each other, baring their souls and coming to an understanding.  Eventually they did emerge, and their relationship had undergone a metamorphosis.  It was a fundamental shift that Judy would never have thought possible.  They smiled at each other, and Sam hugged Nick before letting him go back up to the ground level.

Once Nick was out of earshot, Samantha approached Judy with a contrite look.

“Have you been sitting out in the hall here all day?”

“Not all day,” said Judy, standing up from her seat against the wall.  She wanted to continue being angry at Sam.  To blame her for the whole ordeal they’d gone through.  But something in her resisted.  “I came down for awhile every hour or two.” 

Sam nodded.  “Thank you, Judy.”  She looked at the ground between them.  “For bringing Nick.  For being so angry at me.  And thank you, for letting Nick do this his way.”

Judy’s curiosity got the better of her.  “What did he say to you?”

Sam hesitated, then smiled ruefully.  “He told me what I already knew.  He reminded me of the truth.”

Judy stepped to her sister and pulled her into a tight hug, which Samantha returned.  “He’s good at that,” murmured Judy.  “I know we’ve never really got along as well as we could have, but I’m glad I didn’t lose you.”

“Me too,” said Sam.

Judy pulled away from her and smiled at her encouragingly.  Then she took Sam’s paw in hers and they walked up the stairs to the kitchen, where Judy made Sam grab some food and water.  Then they wandered out to the porch, where Nick was sitting in a wide chair near Bonnie and Stu.  They were quiet, looking at the stars and enjoying each others’ company.  Sam went round and sat against Nick, and Judy came up behind them both, putting a paw on each of Nick’s shoulders, resting her chin on his head.  Nick reached up and put his uninjured paw on one of hers (the broken one having been taken care of by one of Judy's medically-trained siblings), and they interlaced their fingers.

Over a long moment, Judy realized that her family was complete again.  She’d expected to leave here and forfeit any hope of ever seeing half her siblings again, and now…now everything was okay.

After a moment, she began to softly, leisurely sing.  Her parents looked up in surprise, not having heard her sing since she was very young, and Sam simply smiled.

 _“There is a time for love and laughter,”_ sang Judy quietly,  
_“The days will pass like summer storms._  
_“The winter wind will follow after,_  
_“But there is love and love is warm._

 _“There is a time for us to wander,_  
_“When time is young and so are we._  
_“The woods are greener over yonder,_  
_“The path is new, the world is free._

 _“There is a time when leaves are fallin',_  
_“The woods are gray the paths are old._  
_“The snow will come when geese are callin',_  
_“You need a fire against the cold._

 _“So do your roaming in the springtime,_  
_“And you'll find your love in the summer sun._  
_“The frost will come and bring the harvest,_  
_“And you can sleep when day is done._

 _“There is a time for love and laughter,_  
_“The days will pass like summer storms._  
_“The winter wind will follow after,_  
_“But there is love and love is warm.”_

Just twelve hours ago, Judy was facing her entire world changing for the worse.  She faced the loss of her family, and the defiance of her traditions.  But now…everything was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Judy sings is a very old bluegrass song called There Is A Time. It's a wonderful song and you can find lots of beautiful renditions of it on youtube.
> 
> Some elements of this chapter were inspired by PatrickArch and Cimar of Turalis Wildehopps, both of whom are awesome. Thank you, guys.
> 
> Furthermore, I had some logical errors in Chapter 5 that Haradion helped me flesh out. Some of the detail about the fluffle's decisions and the hostility of the siblings were a way to adjust for those mistakes. I'd like to thank Haradion for helping me flesh that out.
> 
> As for Samantha...I realize that what I posed here could be really difficult to read for some of you. And I know that it turns what started as a pure fluff piece into an angst fest. I'm sorry about that. I had difficulty getting through the fight scene, and if it was hard for ME...well, please don't hate me for this.
> 
> Thank you, all of you who leave reviews. I see a lot of names crop up more than once and while I don't always recognize you for it, I want you to know that I appreciate every comment. Seeing familiar names makes me smile, as well. Thank you for believing in me.
> 
> EDIT: It's occurred to me that it's a good idea to note this: Part Two of Sweetly United, titled _Decisions to Heal_ , begins between this chapter and the next. There are one or two minor references to some things in part two in the last couple chapters, but it's not plot-critical so you don't need to run over and read if you don't want to.


	7. Mother Dearest

Judy walked into the living room without knocking and, upon hearing Nick speaking softly—on the phone, presumably—in his bedroom, sat on the couch with the bag she’d entered with.  They’d been back in Zootopia for almost a week, having returned the day after Sarenmas proper.  After the better part of a week saturated in bunnies and festival activities, they were both glad to be back and had spent the last six days working, laying around watching movies, and little else.  It was now Friday evening; they’d gotten off work two hours ago and split up on the way home with no intention to get together again until the next afternoon, but after getting home Judy decided there was far too little Nick around and far too many noisy neighbors.  She walked to Nick’s, then, stopping for food along the way, and let herself in with the key he’d given her.

As if sensing her presence, Nick ended his call and walked out of his bedroom and into the living room.  He didn’t look at all surprised to see her, and he deftly caught the wrapped sandwich she tossed his way.  It was from a sandwich shop they both favored.

“Thanks, Fluff,” said Nick, plopping on the green corduroy couch next to her.  “Ooh, chicken.  I was just considering going and getting some of this.”

“Yeah,” replied Judy, unwrapping her own veggie wrap.  “You should have seen the look the guy gave me when I ordered it, it was like I shot someone.  Had to give the order twice.”

“Was it that tiger kid?”  Nick took a large bite of his sandwich and his ears twitched and rotated in pleasure as he sighed.

“No, a hyena.  I think he’s new.”  She bit into her own food; had she not been sitting on it, her tail would have wiggled.

Nick hummed an acknowledgment, and they sat in silence munching for a few minutes.  It was a stark difference between them, not just _what_ they ate but _how_ they ate it.  Nick had a hoagie with grilled chicken, lettuce, peppers, and spinach, and he ate very slowly with large bites, savoring each morsel; it took him a lot of time to eat anything, and he did so with great pleasure.  Judy, on the other hand, favored spinach, kale, mushroom, cucumber, and bell pepper all drizzled with a light vinaigrette wrapped in a flour tortilla.  Where Nick ate big slow bites, she nibbled hers, and quickly.  By the time Nick had gotten down half his sandwich Judy was licking the last traces of her own off her fingers.  She saw him glance down at her, and counted mentally: _three…two…one._

“Did you taste it?” asked Nick, right on cue.

“Sure did,” replied Judy.  “And it was delicious.”  She watched him take another bite of his sandwich, and somehow still manage to smirk sexily at her.  She could smell the chicken, quite strongly.  It was a mild scent, and not terribly unpleasant.  As a prey animal, Judy had no metabolic need to consume meat in any form, but….

Her paw extended almost as if on its own and she nabbed a small piece of the diced chicken from his sandwich, popping it into her mouth.  Nick’s eyes bugged out at her, mouth suspended in mid-chew.  She stared back at him impassively as she chewed on the little nugget of meat.  The texture was terribly strange, but the flavor—light, mild, savory, lightly seasoned—was not objectionable.

Finally, as she swallowed it and picked up her drink, Nick swallowed his own mouthful and spoke, his voice a mixture of concern and surprise.  “Carrots, did you just eat my chicken?  Can you _do_ that?”

Judy chuckled at him.  “Sure I can.”  She sipped on her soda.  “I don’t _need_ meat, but nothing’s stopping me from eating it.  Worst case scenario, it’ll give me a stomach ache.”

Nick blinked at her.  “That…well.  How was it?”

“Little salty, but not terrible.”  She poked his nose.  “Who were you talking to when I came in?”

His demeanor switched abruptly from one of mild shock to one almost of fear or embarrassment.  “Oh, just my mom.”  He took a bite of his sandwich and turned his focus on that.

Judy stared at him, her turn to be in shock.  In all the time she’d known him, he’d mentioned his family very rarely, and then only in a few words.  She’d assumed he had no family at all, and never pressed the issue.

He clearly could feel her gaze boring holes into the side of his head, because he glanced over again, rolled his eyes, and sighed.  After finishing his mouthful of food, he spoke.

“Don’t make a big deal of it, please.  I talk to her almost every day, and you just…happened to come by while we were on the phone.”

“Nick, I thought your mom was _dead._   You never talk about her.”

“Carrots, I was a street fox for twenty years.  You learn to never mention your family.  Safer for them.  Old habits, and all that.”

It made sense to Judy, and her annoyance at him for keeping his mom from her evaporated immediately.  “So when do I meet her?”

“Tomorrow,” said Nick without hesitation.  “She figured out I was dating someone and insisted on making you dinner.  I told her you were vegetarian, but I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered; my girlfriend is apparently a flesh-eating monstrosity.”

Judy, who had just begun taking a drink, snorted and sprayed herself and Nick’s coffee table with soda.  She then smacked him on the arm and got up to clean up the mess.

“Better lock your door, I might get hungry tonight and decide you’ll make a good midnight snack.”

“Oh, didn’t you know?”  Nick moved to help her clean up.  “I always lock my door at night when you stay over.  I’m always terrified the big bad bun will mistake my gorgeous orange tail for a carrot in her sleep.”

“I think you have an inflated ego, mister.”

Judy didn’t say over after all, deciding that if she were to meet Nick’s mother the next afternoon she wanted to take a good shower and brush out her fur before going over to her apartment, and she always felt a little awkward using Nick’s shower.

The next afternoon, once she was cleaned and brushed, Judy dressed in a simple outfit of black slacks and a blue tee shirt and met Nick outside his apartment building.  He had told her they’d be walking, but didn’t tell her where to.  The mystery continued when she walked up to him and they strolled down the street: his only comment to her was to tell her she looked nice.

They walked for awhile through neighborhoods Judy recognized and began to go through neighborhoods she knew only by stories around the precinct.  Finally, after a quite pleasant forty-five minute walk, they found themselves in a neighborhood the precinct liked to call Tranquility Lane.  Judy had never been here but she’d heard it was peaceful, nearly idyllic, on the surface.  Under the veneer of civility there was an undercurrent of darkness:  a neighborhood of mostly prey mammals, the majority of the city’s mammal trafficking was known to come through here in some way.

Nick pointed to a brownstone townhouse as they passed it.  “Junior Ranger Scouts Pack nine-fourteen used to meet there.”  He gave it no second glance and said nothing else about it, and so Judy didn’t reply.  She simply took his paw in hers.

Two blocks later, he turned and trotted up a set of steps leading to the lobby of an apartment building.  She followed, and as they entered the lobby he waved at the elderly kit fox sitting at the front desk.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Loxley,” said Nick to her, loudly.  The woman looked up and waved back.

“Afternoon, Nicky,” the vixen returned.  “Didn’t expect you until next week.  Go on up, sweetheart.”

Nick smiled at her and pulled Judy toward the stairs.  “I grew up here,” said Nick at a normal volume as they mounted the stairs.  “In fact, I was born right there in that lobby.  The way mom tells it, Mrs. Loxley’s husband wanted to sue mom and my father for damages but she refused to entertain the idea.  That old vixen helped raise me.”

“She seemed…nice,” offered Judy.  Nick smirked at her but didn’t comment.

They got off the stairs at the third floor and Nick led her down the halls, stopping outside one and turning to her with a serious look.

“Listen, fluff,” said Nick quietly.  “My mom is…different from what you’ll expect.  Please don’t stare, okay?”

Judy tilted her head to one side in confusion.  “Why would I stare?”

Nick looked distinctly uncomfortable.  “Mom is…well, she has a condition.  It’s called Leucism, she’s a red fox but has none of the typical coloring.  I didn’t inherit it, obviously, it’s a recessive trait and my father didn’t have it, but…look, I know you’re not going to deliberately make her uncomfortable, but I just wanted you to be prepared.”

Judy nodded and smiled, though she had never heard of the condition.  “I got this, Nick.  Don’t worry.  Your mom will _love_ me.”  The statement was pure bravado; Judy was in fact quite nervous, as her droopy ears and twitching nose gave way.

“You’re right,” agreed Nick.  “She will.  Oh by the way…I didn’t tell her what species you were.”  He knocked on the door before Judy could respond properly with the spiked anxiety and horror.  The vixen didn’t know she was a bunny?  Now Judy had so much more reason to be nervous, and the smirk on Nick’s face said he knew it.  Judy began wringing her paws together unconsciously.

The door opened, and there she was.

Mrs. Wilde was absolutely gorgeous.  Her coat was a soft off-white, just slightly more creamy than an arctic fox’s coat might be, and her eyes were the same brilliant green as her son’s.  She was slightly shorter than her son, but their facial features were clearly and vividly similar.  She was frowning as she opened the door and looked right at Nick.

“Nicholas Piberius Wilde, why in hell did you _knock_ on _your own home_?”  Then she noticed Judy standing awkwardly and apprehensively next to Nick, and her ears pricked up, tail rose, and she smiled brightly.  “Oh!  Apollo help me, you’re gorgeous.  You must be Judy.”

Judy nodded and when Mrs. Wilde offered a paw, Judy shook it with a smile.

“Nicky did _not_ tell me you were a bunny, but I should have known.  Come in, sweetheart.”  She turned and walked into the apartment.  Nick smirked at Judy again, but Judy ignored it.

“She’s _gorgeous_ ,” whispered Judy furiously.  “No wonder you’re so hot, your mom is amazing looking.”  Then she turned and skipped into the apartment after the older vixen.

It was a small apartment, but it was nice.  The living room was cluttered but clean, decorated with knick knacks from what looked like a hundred different city-states, nothing expensive and nothing large, but all of it beautiful or interesting.  Such as the little ivory statuette of the elephant sage Buddha, or the wood and twine and feather webbing some deer cultures made, called a dream catcher.  It was all neatly labeled by location and date, presumably the date they were obtained.

Judy sat delicately on the clearly-old but intact grey couch, and Mrs. Wilde sat on the armchair opposite, folding her legs underneath her.  Nick simply sprawled across the rest of the couch next to Judy.

“Nick never said much about you, I’m afraid,” said Judy, giving him a look. “It’s good to meet you, though, Mrs. Wilde.”

The vixen snorted.  “Oh honey, please don’t call me Mrs. Wilde.  My name is Skye.  And I’m aware my son keeps me a secret.  No idea why he’s so ashamed of me.”  So dry was her humor that Judy almost didn’t catch the good-natured glare the vixen shot Nick, who replied only by sticking his tongue out at her like a child.  “So tell me, how long have you been dating?”

“What’s today?” asked Judy, glancing at Nick.  “Saturday?  Almost two weeks.  You picked up on it really quickly.”

“I’m a mother, honey.”  Skye’s grin was unnervingly similar to Bonnie’s “motherly” look.  “You’re the bunny who convinced my son to get off his arse and make something of himself two years ago.”  It wasn’t a question.

Judy nodded anyway.  “He was instrumental in solving my first case, and when it was over, yes, I was able to get him to join the ZPD.  He’s been a very good police officer, actually.  More so than I expected.  He’s really got a talent for talking to people.”

“He gets that from his dad,” said Skye.  “So what happened to his wrist?”

Nick groaned.  “Mom, I told you what happened to my wrist.  I broke it.”  He brushed his right paw over the cast absently.

Skye stared at Nick, unimpressed, then looked at Judy, clearly expecting her to tell the story.

Judy chuckled.  “Dang it, Nick, why do you do this to me?  You knew if you didn’t tell her she’d ask me.  Didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” said Nick absently, inspecting his claws.

Judy shot him a good-natured glare and a solid punch to his rib.  Then, she turned back to Skye.

“When we were in Bunny Burrow last week, he had a disagreement with one of my sisters.  They ended up deciding to have a combat trial to end the problem; we had my family decide the particulars.  When the time came, Sam broke his wrist with her first attack.”

“How much damage did you do to her?” Skye asked Nick.

“Didn’t,” replied Nick, still sprawled on the couch.  “I talked her down.  I was the only casualty.”

“It’s true,” said Judy, pulling Nick’s feet into her lap absently.  “Talked right through her defenses, convinced her to give up the fight.  They spent the rest of the day talking.”

“Of course, for the following week after she slept on it, she was skittish around me,” continued Nick.  “But considering she hated foxes completely before the fight ‘skittish’ was a vast improvement.”

“How did the rest of the family take all this?” Sky looked back over to Judy with concern.

Judy, absently pushing her fingers gently into the pressure points in Nick’s feet, shrugged.  “Most of my family were really angry at Samantha for her attitude, actually.  My parents especially, since it was their pushing for us to date that caused us to even discuss the possibility in the first place.  After he asked me to date him, Nick was really concerned about keeping my family intact, but he didn’t really need to worry about it.  Most of them were on our side.”

“Wait.”  Skye sat up straighter.  “Nick asked you out?  You didn’t ask him?”

“That’s right, mom,” interrupted Nick.  His eyes were closed and his voice was colored with the pleasure from Judy’s impromptu foot massage.  “I’m a rebel now as much as I’ve ever been.”

“I’d be worried if you weren’t,” joked Skye.  “Nicky, honey, do me a favor.  Go into the kitchen and check the food.  Then do us a big favor and make some tea.”

“You’re cruel, woman,” sighed Nick, pulling his feet off Judy’s lap and standing.  “I was being pampered there.”

“I know, that’s why I asked you to go do it.”  Skye kissed at him, and Nick went down the hall to the kitchen rolling his eyes.  “Now that he’s out of our fur for a few minutes…I have to be up front with you, sweetie.  I’m a little concerned.”

Judy’s stomach clenched and she took a deep breath.  “Okay,” said Judy.  “Go on.”

“I don’t pretend to be an expert in lapine sexuality, but I have some experience.  I happen to know that rabbits have prodigious libidos, and are very much not monogamous.  Now I don’t really mind that, but you have to understand.  Rabbits have a very short hormonal cycle, so you don’t have a mating ‘season.’  But foxes do have mating seasons.”

Judy frowned.  “Nick is a male, though.  Males don’t have heat cycles.”

“He is a fox, though, sweetie.”  Skye smiled patiently.  “Males may not have heat cycles, but they do have hormonal cycles that time with heat cycles.  A tod, biologically speaking, is only interested in sex during the winter.  That doesn’t mean they can’t _have_ sex during the rest of the year, of course, and it doesn’t mean they can’t _enjoy_ it.  But a normal tod will only be driven to engage in it during winter months.  He also can’t easily get anyone pregnant outside of winter, but since you’re a bunny you can’t have kits anyway so that’s not relevant here.”

Judy nodded.  “I’m glad you told me that.  I had no idea, he’s never mentioned it.”

“He wouldn’t,” said Skye.  “He’s a pleaser, when he cares.”

“Your concern is that I’ll…betray him, that I’ll cheat on him.”

“I know a thing or two about rabbit-fox relations, and that’s a key issue there, yes.”  Skye looked at Judy not with accusation or upset but with understanding.  “I want you to understand that foxes have a drive for sex magnitudes lower than your own, except for during a couple months in the winter.”

Judy sighed.  “The thing is,” said Judy, “I’m not a typical rabbit.  I can’t just…be with someone I think is pretty.  Nick is the only one I’ve ever wanted.  I don’t know what my libido will do when we first have sex, but I’ll work with him.  We’ll make it work.  I’m not going to push him.”

Skye smiled.  “Good girl.”

“How do you know so much about rabbit sexuality, though?”  Judy sat forward; she was genuinely curious, because most mammals only knew and cared about the reputation that bunnies had lots of sex.  Even the monogamy aspect was relatively unknown.

“That’s a story,” said Skye as Nick came in the room with a tray of cups and a teapot.  She stood and took it from him and started pouring tea for the three of them.  “Nicky, tell Judy about your dad.”

“Dad?  Umm…okay.”  Nick took a cup of tea and passed it to Judy, took his own, and then sat.  “Well, mom married a red fox tailor named John.  Had one kit with him before he was killed in an accident.”  He spoke frankly and with little emotion.  “I was an infant at the time, of course, so I never really knew him.  Mom was working in a diner at the time, and shortly after John’s death she started seeing this guy coming in every week.  Sharp suit, quick wit, proud bearing but relaxed.  He started coming in only when he knew mom was working and only sitting in her section.

“It wasn’t long before they became friends.  They got along really well.  Guy was a flirt, make no mistake.  If it had a pulse, he flirted with it.  Except mom.  Never once flirted with her.”

“Made me feel terrible about myself for a long time,” inserted Skye.  “Thought something was wrong with me.”

“Yeah,” continued Nick, “but it was exactly the opposite, he didn’t flirt with her because he actually liked her.  So they were friends, and over time they became very good friends.  After almost three years, mom asked him out.  She’d saved up all this money to take him to a fancy restaurant, and in the end he just brought her over to his place and cooked for her.  Two weeks later, Dad invited her to move in with him. 

“He was gone a lot back then, because he was a field agent for the ZIA, but when he got involved with mom he tried to get as many assignments close to home as possible.  Even now he’s gone a lot; he officially works a desk at headquarters just outside the city, but he was one of the best field agents they’ve ever had.  Even now, when a mission requires a particularly delicate paw, they send Jackson Harvey Leaps.”

“That’s not a very awe-inspiring name,” joked Judy dryly.  “Aren’t spies supposed to have grand names?”

“It’s his birth name,” replied Skye.  “His code name is Jack Savage.”

“Better?” quipped Nick with a smirk.

“Much,” sniffed Judy delicately.  She sipped the tea, which was quite good actually.  “So your dad is a rabbit then?  Leaps is a rabbit name.  Originally out of Deerbrook, I think.”

“Jack is a rabbit, yes,” said Skye with a soft grin.  “We’ve an unconventional relationship by fox standards, of course.  Jack does not defy rabbit stereotypes in the bedroom, and I can’t keep him sated by myself.  But he always comes home to me.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”  Judy fixed her with a curious gaze, trying to read the older vixen.

Sky shrugged.  “Why should it?  Karma knows _I’m_ not interested most of the time.  I do it anyway because let’s face it…sex is fun.  But I simply don’t have the stamina to keep up with him even then.  I know he’s careful, and I know he’ll always come back to me at the end of the day.  Besides, in his line of work sometimes sex is necessary.”

“That’s a very gracious attitude.”

“I think so.”  Skye took a sip of her tea, then set the cup aside.  “Nicky tends to be more possessive than his mother, though.  Don’t you, Nick?”

Nick rolled his eyes.  “Yes, I do.  Why are we talking about this?”

“Because you’re dating a rabbit, son.”

“I’ve actually been thinking about that,” said Judy.  “Our options.”

Nick groaned.  “Can we not talk about our sex life with my _mother_ please?”

“Slick, you’re going to have to learn to talk about this anyway with my family.”  Judy finished her tea and set it aside, then pushed Nick with her shoulder.  “May as well start now.”

Nick gave a deep-suffering sigh, and his ears pinked in a blush.  “Alright, Fluff.  Lay it on me.”

She smirked, but didn’t tease him.  “Well, first off I can get a libido suppressant.  It won’t kill my libido completely, but it’ll make it much more manageable.  Not many side effects.  It’ll affect my sleep a little probably.”

“Sounds good,” said Nick.  “If that’s what you want to do.  Second?”

Judy winked at Skye and her smirk grew.  “Second…we get you the opposite.  I’ve read about this medication that males can take that boosts their sex drive by a lot.  Even mammals with seasonal mating cycles.”

Nick’s tail flipped round his waist and ears pricked forward.  “Huh.  What are the side effects?”

“Not many,” said Judy.  “Oily skin.  Slightly increased aggression.  No big deal.”

“…aggression?  Carrots, I’m dating a _rabbit_.” 

“You’re dating a rabbit,” said Judy casually, “who quite _likes_ aggressive males, so don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Skye snorted, and Judy shot her a grin.

“On that note,” said Nick, standing, “dinner should be ready.  Shall we?”  The girls stood, giggling, and followed him into the kitchen where a vegetarian lasagna had been prepared, cooked from scratch apparently by Skye.  After a short benediction over the meal in Karma’s name by Skye, they began eating.  The meal was accompanied by small talk mostly consisting of Skye and Judy swapping stories about Nick. Eventually, though, the meal was quite finished, and Judy was stuffed.

“I’m so full right now,” she said, leaning back in her chair.  “I didn’t know food could taste so good.”

Skye chuckled lazily.  “Nick helped perfect the recipe.  You’ll have to make him prepare it for you.”

“I absolutely can do that,” said Nick, gathering plates.  “But right now, I’m going to get these dishes cleaned.  You guys can go relax.”

“How can you move right now, Nick?” asked Judy with a groan.  “I think if I breathe too hard I’ll pop.”

Nick laughed.  “Carrots, I have many talents.”

She joked about it, but Judy did make her way to the living room again with Skye while Nick started washing the dishes.  They sat in silence, enjoying the aftermath of the food and the pleasure of the other’s presence, for a few minutes.

Eventually, though, Skye looked over at Judy from her spot curled on her chair.  “You’re good for him, you know.”

Judy looked over and raised an eyebrow.

“Really.  You’re a good influence on my son.  Don’t think I don’t know what he did for money all that time.  All the nights I had to leave work early to get him out of jail.  All the times I had to patch up his wounds from fights with criminals.  Jack was able to help us with money, but I was too proud for too many years to accept his help, and so Nick did his part.  For a long time I pretended I didn’t know, and for a long time after that I pretended I was okay with it.

“But then two years ago, I got a call from him.  He told me he met a bunny who changed everything.  He told me how badly you hurt him, how much he hated you for it.  And you know what I told him in return?”

Judy shook her head.  She could feel the prickle of her eyes watering just from the reminder of that terrible mistake.

“I told him that he was in love.  He denied it, of course, didn’t accept it.  But I knew.  And then I was told, a couple months later, that he was going to be a police officer.  ‘I’ve changed, mom,’ he told me.  ‘I’m a better person, thanks to her.  I’m going to make you proud.’

“And he has.  Thanks to you.”

Tears made tracks in Judy’s fur, and Skye crossed the short gap between them and drew her into a hug.  “He’s always so damned defensive,” said Judy wetly.  “Even after everything we’ve been through, he still hates opening up.”

“I know, sweetie,” murmured Sky, rubbing a paw over her back.  “But don’t let that fool you.  My son loves you more than he’s loved anyone else.  I can see it.  He’s so different now.  He was cynical for so long, and now his smiles are genuine.”

“Thank you,” sniffed Judy.  “For telling me.”

Sky smiled at her, and kissed her cheek.  “Of course.”  She stood and went to one of the many shelves decorating the room, and brought back a small, delicate wooden box, and handed it to Judy.  Judy took it and opened it, to reveal a satin interior with a delicate silver ring inside.  The gem was a marquise-cut aquamarine.

“It’s beautiful,” said Judy.

“I gave that to Jack when I proposed,” said Skye quietly.  “I’ve already had it resized for Nick; Jack and I talked about the possibility of him marrying when he graduated the academy, and Jack wanted Nick to have his ring.  Now you take this, and when the time comes…okay?”

Judy swallowed, and looked at Skye.  “I was going to let Nick do this.  When he was ready.”

Skye’s expression was patiently exasperated.  “Sweetie, how many things has Nick done to fit in with your culture?”

Judy thought before answering, and then answered slowly.  “Actually, he’s done a lot.  He went to great effort to fit in with my family.  He’s the one who suggested we go out.  He did so earlier than he was really comfortable with.”

Skye nodded.  “Yes.  And it’s time you made some sacrifices too.  Tods don’t propose, honey.  Vixens do.  I know you love him, and I know you’re sure of this already.  It’s pretty obvious, the way you look at him.”

Judy gazed at the ring for a moment, then nodded.  It wouldn’t be hard.  It would, in fact, have been more difficult for her to wait for Nick to propose; she knew what she wanted, and it was in her nature to go get it.  She closed the box and slipped it into her pocket, and then she stood and hugged Skye tightly.

They pulled apart just as Nick came back into the room, and he raised an eyebrow at Skye.  “You made my girlfriend cry?”

Both girls chuckled, and Judy grabbed his paw.  “We were talking.  She clarified some things, and helped me understand how right this is.”

Nick smiled at her.  “You bunnies,” he started.

“So emotional,” finished Judy, rolling her eyes.  “Yeah, I know.”

Skye, who was looking at them with an almost dangerous amount of warmth, shook her head and pushed them toward the door. 

“Go on, kids,” said Skye.  “Go do your thing.  Jack will be home in a week or two, make sure you come over to meet him, Judy.”  At the threshold to the apartment, Skye hugged both of them tightly.  “Thank you for bringing her, Nicky.  I really like you, Judy.  Don’t be a stranger.”

“I’m glad I came,” replied Judy, returning the hug yet again.  Then they were gone, and Sky was left with her empty apartment again.  While her husband was gone on assignment, the apartment always seemed too big and too cold and unfriendly, but today she couldn’t help but feel warm and cozy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three big notes before I say anything else: First, a HUGE thanks to Kittah4 for pointing out an error in my research when we spoke about fox mating habits a couple weeks ago. That was very helpful and helped shape this chapter.
> 
> Second, a big thanks to AeonFeral, who shared a site detailing lots of fox color mutations. This site was fascinating and definitely helped spark the idea for Nick's mother.
> 
> Third, another big thanks to Pepoluan for informing me of Word of God concerning Nick's Mom being alive and well. 
> 
> Now that's all taken care of....I realize I skipped most of the trip to Bunny Burrow. I tried to write more of the actual vacation, and it just didn't work out very well. Believe me...skipping it was preferable to the drivel I was producing. So...sorry about that. I do hope this turned out well, though. It definitely turned out LONG AS HELL though, so...there's that. Anyway, enjoy :)


	8. Propositions

Judith Hopps spent a lot of time with Nicholas Wilde.  She was not difficult to observe for someone with Jack’s skill set, didn’t look for tails or bugs.  Jack Savage had been back in Zootopia for a week, and had spent that week away from home scoping out the celebrity rabbit police officer.  She was a fine cop from his perspective, equal parts fair-minded and zealous of the law.  She had a great deal of attention to detail:  Just in the week he observed her, she helped solve three on-going investigations, two of which she was not even part of, simply by pointing out seemingly minor details nobody else had connected.

It was clear why Bogo liked her.

She was also very attractive.  In other circumstances, Jack would have spoken to his wife for permission to seduce Judy Hopps, though his professional opinion was that he’d likely fail to do so.  During those seven days of observation Jack saw her look at precisely one mammal with any kind of amorous feeling at all, and that one mammal was Nick, the slick red fox she partnered with on the ZPD.

In observing Officer Hopps, he ended up also observing Officer Wilde.  He discovered that Nick Wilde was a lazy, grinning, goof-off of a police officer who by all casual appearances brought shame to the uniform.  But if Judith Hopps solved three investigations, it was because of Nick.  Nick was lazy, yes, because energy expended was energy lost.  Nick was grinning, yes, because humor put people at ease.  Nick was a goof-off, yes, because he was very good at his job and could afford to goof off from time to time.  His goofing off, his joking, his preference to do as little heavy lifting as possible, annoyed Officer Hopps and forced her to focus more than she would otherwise.  Nick noticed things every bit as much as Hopps did, and he helped her to notice them as well.  Her attention fed on his humor, focused by his own notice of things, and they learned things, had epiphanies, and questioned seemingly mundane details at the same time. 

In short, they were a more effective investigative team than Jack had ever seen.  It was clear why Bogo also liked Nick.

In the more personal realm of life, Judy and Nick continued to get on very well.  They went home separately each night after work, and then met back up after changing and cleaning up at which point they went to dinner.  According to Jack’s wife, they had been dating for more than a month at the end of Jack’s week of observation, and he had to give Officer Hopps credit:  she was handling the lack of sex in their relationship very well.  Jack knew they were as yet sexually abstinent because they never spent time alone together anywhere even semi-private, and because Judy’s increasingly agitated behavior with Nick was very indicative of a rabbit in enforced abstinence. 

That’s not to say Judy treated Nick badly.  On the contrary:  Jack could see the agitation was entirely physical, and Nick—if Jack’s lip reading was accurate—was aware of the difficulty Judy was having and commiserated.  Jack gathered that the enforced abstinence was as much Judy’s choice as Nick’s preference, a preference Jack knew he’d have.  Foxes, after all, did have a tendency to remain nonsexual until marriage.

So each evening Nick and Officer Hopps had dinner, Officer Hopps spent that dinner both enjoying his company and resisting her sex drive.  They laughed, they teased, they ate, and they got along.  And when the evening was over they went separate ways, Nick to his apartment in Meadowlands District and Judy to hers in Savannah Central.  Saturday, the day they had off, they spent the day in Emerald View Park, walking and quietly enjoying each other’s company.  Their paw holding and periodic kisses got attention from more than a few other mammals, some of who smiled at them, some of whom scowled and grumbled, and one bad-tempered stoat who would have utilized the shiv concealed in his paw had he not taken a rather heavy assisted tumble into the pond.

Sunday morning, Judy went out for breakfast near her apartment.  When she left, Jack walked up to her apartment, picked the lock, and entered, shutting and locking the door behind him.  He was very quiet as he stepped across the very tiny apartment and looked at the single room.  It was Spartan:  a desk, dresser, nightstand, and bed was the only furniture.  The nightstand held an alarm clock and a photograph of Officer Hopps and Nick on his first day on the force.  Her desk held several photos of Hopps’s family, a half-consumed willow chew stick, a stray phone charger.  Jack could have gone through Judy’s dresser, was tempted to do so, but he refrained and instead sat at Judy’s desk and looked at one of the Hopps group photos.  It was from several years ago, judging from Judy, and it was a happy one.

 

* * *

 

Judy picked up a quick breakfast of muffins from a shop down the street—muffins which could not match her dad’s but which were nonetheless delicious—and took them back to her apartment.  She’d been going to that shop most mornings since she moved into Grand Pangolin Arms.  By the time she made it back to her door she’d consumed one of the muffins.

She stopped at the door, though, and immediately drew the sidearm she kept concealed in her hip pocket.  Then she unlocked her door, slung it open, and was proceeded into the room by the gun, pointing it at the intruder sitting at her desk.  He was a tall older light grey rabbit with stripes across his face and a very expensive looking suit, and he was gazing at a picture of Judy and her older siblings, taken shortly after she graduated college.  The rabbit sat the picture down back in its place and stood up, showing no alarm at all at the gun pointing at him.

“Paws up,” said Judy, closing the door behind her with one food.  He raised his paws, his expression neutral.

“How did you know I was here?”  His voice was lightly accented and actually pleasant to hear.

“I put a strand of fur across my door handle every time I leave my room.”  She edged closer to him, and stopped outside his reach.  “There’s a notch where it can sit without being blown off from movement in the hallway, but if the handle turns it falls off.”

“Very clever.”  The buck lowered his paws.  “My name is Jack Savage, Officer ZIA.  You are courting my son.”

Judy blinked at him for a moment, then lowered her firearm.  “Why did you break into my apartment?”

“To get a final feel for your character.”  He tugged his dark grey jacket straight.  “I’ve been observing you for a few days.  You must understand, clandestine practices are more natural to me than more direct methods of intelligence gathering.”

“Like having a conversation with me,” said Judy, irritably.

Jack smiled.  “Just so.”  He sat delicately on Judy’s bed.  “I care about my son a great deal.  He despised me for most of his life, you understand; I was not there for him, and he felt I was taking advantage of his mother.  Rightly so: he didn’t understand the parameters of my relationship with Skye, had no way to frame it except traditional fox social structures.  But when he got older and more experienced in the world, he began to understand.  I’ve always loved Nick, but we have grown closer in the last decade.  I needed to be certain you were appropriate for Nick.”

Judy turned her desk chair to face Jack and sat in it.  “And what is your ‘professional opinion’ then?”

“My professional opinion is that you are a staggeringly effective police officer who works exceptionally well with my son, and your talents are being wasted at the ZPD.”  He stood again.  “But it’s not my professional opinion you require, it’s my personal opinion.  And my personal opinion is that you are as exceptional a doe as you are a police officer.  There is no single male who deserves your presence in his life as much as Nicholas Wilde, and I am ridiculously pleased to see you courting him.”

Judy smiled despite herself.  “Flattery won’t help you get out of your breaking and entering charge, mister.”

Jack snorted, grinning.  “No, but helping you with your conundrum might.  Besides, Chief Bogo is a very good friend of mine.”

“My conundrum?”  Judy was beginning to understand where some of Nick’s charm came from.  “Which conundrum is that?”

“Why, how to propose to my son of course.”  He stepped across the room, stopping at the door.  “You’re a smart bunny, Officer Hopps.  Go with your instinct.  Your first idea is probably the best.”

“How do you know my ideas?”

“I don’t,” said Jack.  “I just know they are good.  Welcome to the family, Officer.”  He was gone.

He was also right:  Judy had spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how to propose to Nick.  How to make it special.  How to make it memorable.  She’d had several ideas, but none seemed good enough.  After some thought, she decided to follow Jack’s advice.  But first, she called her boss.

“ _Bogo_ ,” said the deep, gruff voice on the other end of the line.  He sounded sleepy.

“Chief, it’s Officer Hopps.  If I leveled a breaking and entering complaint against one Jack Savage, would that go anywhere?”

“ _No.  Next time you call me at seven in the morning on a Sunday you’ll be on parking duty for a month._ ”  He hung up.  Judy chuckled and shook her head.  Then she sat down to finish her breakfast.  Later, she would go see Nick for lunch. 

She dressed in jeans and her pink gingham shirt, and took the train to Nick’s apartment.  When he answered the door after she knocked, he was wearing the green palm print shirt and khaki pants she hated so much.

“You said dress casual.”  He stepped aside and let her enter.  “Is this casual enough?”

Judy smirked.  She could tell he was hoping for a complaint.  “Actually…that’s perfect.  When are you going to move out of this musty, crumbly apartment?”

The moment of confusion in Nick’s face over her acceptance made Judy giggle.

“Actually,” said Nick, recovering, “I was thinking about that recently.  We have an appointment during lunch tomorrow to look at an apartment in Savannah Central, if you’re okay with that.  It’s in a partially underground place.”

“And…our apartment would be underground?”  Judy stood in Nick’s living room and watched him pick a striped tie off a tie rack and loop it around his neck.

“Yup.  Mmhm.”  He tied the necktie with a deftness borne of years of practice.  “Bottom floor, in fact.”

“And you’re okay with living underground?”  Judy reached up and adjusted his tie, loosening it just a bit.  Then they headed to the door.

“Sure, Carrots.  Foxes used to den, you know.  Just like rabbits.”  He locked the door behind them and they began walking to the train station.

“Not _just_ like rabbits, Slick.”  Judy interlaced her fingers with his.  “Our warrens were bigger than your dens, I’d bet.  I’m willing to look at this apartment with you.  Bold of you to assume I’d move in with you, though.”

“I’m a gambler, Carrots. You know this.”

“Yeah yeah, I know.”  They boarded a train bound for Savanna Central, and in short order they were in the southern reaches of the district.  Judy led him to a fancy restaurant called Raven’s Gate, and he whistled as they entered.

“Carrots, this is a prestigious place.  How did you get reservations?”

“Reservation for two, under Hopps,” said Judy to the maitre d’.  Then to Nick as they were led through the place, she said, “Your mom, actually.  She said you’ve been wanting to eat here for a long time, and she knew a guy who knew a guy.”

“…well.  Go mom.”  They were seated and ordered wine.  Nick stared around him in awe as they waited for their drinks, and Judy gazed at him, smiling. 

Then their drinks came, they ordered their meals—Nick ordering a chicken-based pasta dish and Judy ordering a stuffed mushroom dish—and then Judy sipped her drink.  “So…I met your dad this morning.”

Nick groaned.  “Oh no…tell me he didn’t break in.”

“Yep.”

“Did you shoot him?”  He sipped his wine; judging from his expression, he enjoyed it.  Judy had to admit…it was really good wine.

“Nope.  Actually, I kinda like him.  You didn’t say your charm came from your dad’s side.”

Nick rolled his eyes.  “Right.  Should I be worried?  I mean, I know my dad’s taste.”

Judy chuckled, but shook her head.  “No, Nick.  Of course not.  He’s good looking, but…he’s your dad.  That’d be weird, at best.  Besides, he’s not my type.”

“Oh?  What’s your type, then?” 

“Tall, red, and handsome?” Her comment made Nick smile in that way she liked, and she felt the flush along her spine and in her core she’d come to expect when in his presence.  To help distract herself—and him in a moment, as he’d be able to smell it—she changed the subject.  “Nick…your dad mentioned that you and he didn’t get along for awhile.”

Nick’s face fell a little, but he didn’t seem terribly upset.  “That’s an understatement.  When he started dating mom, well…at first he was just some bunny.  You know?  I was too young to really understand what he was or what he meant, but when I got older and started to understand what it meant that they were ‘together’…Dad was never shy about his other girls with my mom.  Told her every time.  It always made me angry that he was _so arrogant_ as to just _tell_ her when he cheated and expected her to just not mind.

“Of course, I was completely befuddled when mom didn’t get angry.  So I lashed out at dad when he was rarely home.  When mom finally had enough of it, she sat me down and tried to explain it to me.  It…didn’t go well.  I was twelve, and I left home.  Didn’t come back for three weeks, and by then I’d been exposed to the underground.”

“You started hustling.” 

“Well…the spark was ignited, yeah.”

Their meal arrived, and they began eating.  They were silent for awhile as they ate; the food was expensive, but it was definitely worth the cost.

“This is really amazing,” said Nick at last.  “Like, really.”

“It really is,” agreed Judy.  “So, you didn’t like your dad.  What changed?”

Nick chuckled, finished chewing, and nodded.  “Yeah.  I screwed up once, really bad.  I ended up pegged for a really serious crime, one that I didn’t do.  Of course, I was a fox.  I’d be in prison for life, innocent or not.  But I called mom to let her know I was screwed, and she called dad. 

“I was out within the hour.  Dad, of course, has friends everywhere.  He’s had assets all over the world, and more than a few here at home, and he called one of them.  Got me out, my name never officially entered the case record.  After that, I decided we needed to talk.  It was a…difficult discussion, but we ended up understanding each other a great deal better than we had before.”

“It’s good that you were able to reconcile.”  Judy popped the last bite of her mushroom in her mouth and chewed it with relish before swallowing.  “He may have broken into my apartment, but I can’t help but like him.”

“Yeah, dad has that effect on people.”  He finished his own meal, then finished off his wine.  “So, that was the best lunch I’ve had in a long time.  What do you have planned next?  Topping this will be difficult.”

“I think I can manage.”  Judy smiled.  She paid the bill with cash lent to her by Skye, then led Nick back out onto the street.  They walked paw in paw down the road, Judy providing direction, and Nick watching where they were going very carefully.

“Where are you taking me?”  Nick had been silent for a long time, and finally, as the buildings began to become sparse, he spoke up, looking suspicious.

They rounded a corner, and he saw it.  He frowned, his brow knitted in confusion.  “Carrots…why did you take me here?”  Judy didn’t respond right away, she simply pulled him across the bridge and down the hill, stopping only when they reached the shade underneath, feet from where they reconciled so long ago.

“When you walked away from me at the press conference, you were so angry.”  A smile graced her face, completely inappropriate to the memory.  “And in the aftermath, I genuinely believed you would hate me forever.”

“You were shattered,” said Nick solemnly, his dark expression a stark contrast to Judy’s small smile.  “You were so willing to give up everything.  To just…walk away.  I’ve never heard anyone so heartbroken.  That’s…that’s when I figured out I was in love with you.”

“I had my own epiphany that day,” said Judy, squeezing his paw.  She turned to face him fully and picked up his other paw.  “I came to the understanding before I left home that I loved you.  I mean, how could I not have?  And I spent so long trying to come up with a brilliant, slick, honeyed way to bring you back to me.  To get you to forgive me.  A speech worthy of you.  And…nothing was good enough.  And then I saw you again, and you still hated me, and….”  Judy’s voice wavered, and she drew a steadying breath.  Despite her still-present smile, the memory was getting to her.

“You okay there, Judy?”  Nick looked into her eyes with concern.

She nodded.  “Yeah.  You still hated me, and everything just fell away.  I knew I’d never see you again after we bagged Bellwether.  And it crushed me.  But I was willing to walk away, and I knew then that I’d never find someone like you again.”

“And then I forgave you.”  Nick smiled.  “Because I knew I loved you, and because…your heartbreak was genuine.  You bared your soul to me.”

Judy stepped closer to him.  “Everything we became, Nick.  It all started _here_.  It came together _here_.  I gained the best partner I could ever have.  Here.”

“I _am_ a pretty great guy,” said Nick with his signature grin.  “What can I say?”

Judy’s own grin turned sweet.  “You…could say…yes.”  She pulled a small wooden box from her pocket, opened it, and handed it to Nick.

Nick inhaled sharply and took it reverently, looking shell-shocked.  “M-my dad’s ring.”  His emerald eyes flicked up to hers, his mouth hanging open.

“It’s been resized for you,” said Judy softly.

Nick closed his mouth, smiled, then gently pulled the silver ring from its box.  “Would I like to marry you?  Yes.  Yes I would.”  He slipped the ring on his ring finger, knelt before Judy, and she pulled him to her. 

Their kiss was long, sweet, and heartfelt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long time coming. I'm so sorry for the wait, you guys. It took me awhile to get the thread of this back again. Thank you guys for sticking with me during this hectic time, and I truly hope you enjoy the chapter. I hope it's fluffy enough for you guys, I know I've been hitting the angst really hard lately.


	9. Pawfasting

Judy wringed her paws nervously, staring at her reflection in the mirror.  She was standing in her room in the Hopps Compound, wearing not one stitch of clothing, and her nerves were near shot.

“You need to calm down,” said the soothing voice of one of her guests.  Judy turned and smiled distractedly at the pale form behind her.  Skye, Nick’s mother, approached her and put a paw on her shoulder, while Jack watched quietly in the corner.  “Everything will be okay, Judy.”

“I know.”  Judy turned back to her reflection, frowning.  “I’m just…I’m nervous.”

“Why?”

“Well.”  Judy faced Skye, still wringing her paws.  “I never really expected to marry, you know.  It’s just never seemed like a possibility.  But now it’s happening and I’m so nervous and I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, I worry that Nick….”

“Judy.”  Skye pulled Judy’s paws from themselves, holding them tightly.  “My son loves you.  Do you have any idea how excited he was when he told me you proposed?  He was _crying_ , sweetheart.  I’ve seen him cry only once since he was a kid.”

Judy nodded and took a breath.

“As for whether this is the right thing…you two are very good together.  Few couples could claim a bond as strong as yours.”

Judy nodded again.  “You’re right.  I’m being an idiot.  Still…it feels strange that I’ll be wearing clothes at my own wedding.”

Skye raised an eyebrow.  “This is strange?”

“Of course.”  Judy ran her claws through the fur of her arm absently.  “Bunny couples attend their wedding nude.  You didn’t know that?”

Skye shook her head.  “Jack and I didn’t have a ceremony.  We went to the courthouse.  Why would you go naked?  That seems…strange.”

Judy shrugged and sat on her bed.  “In bunny homes it’s…difficult to avoid seeing your family naked all the time.  There are just so many of us in one dwelling that you learn very early to not let it bother you.  But that attitude doesn’t extend past the burrow door.  We tend to be _very_ modest outside our family.  Being undressed when you marry symbolizes your spouse becoming part of your fluffle.  His willingness to bare himself to your family, and yours to his, as if you all grew up together, it’s like saying ‘we’re family now, and we’re going to act like it.’  It’s an important step.”

“Similar to having us help her prepare before the ceremony,” said Jack at last, standing from his seat in the corner.  “Having the fiancé’s parents help prepare you for the ceremony shows a certain trust in your new family.”  Jack gestured to Judy, and she stood again, approaching him, pausing long enough to grab the brush from her bedside table, which she handed to him.

Judy turned her back on Jack and spoke to Skye as Jack began brushing through her fur.  “Are you sure it needs to be a dress, though?  I don’t…I’m not a dress mammal.  Dresses don’t look good on me.”

Skye frowned, and even Jack paused in his gentle brushing for a moment.

“…who told you that?” asked Skye.

Judy shook her head.  “It’s the truth.  Dresses are too pretty for me.”

Skye’s frown turned to a scowl.  “That’s crap, Judy, and you know it.  You’re one of the most beautiful mammals I’ve ever seen.  Any mammal—of any species—would agree with that.  And it’s more than fur-deep.  You’ve got an aura that makes you likeable.  The way you hold yourself, the way your face lights up when you smile.  You’re more beautiful than you think, sweetie.”

Jack, who was still pulling the brush through her fur, along the middle of her back now, spoke next.  “She’s right.  And anyway, this dress was cut specifically for you.  It’s a vixen bridal gown, but made for your frame.  You’ll look great, don’t worry.”

Judy swallowed back her protests, choosing to trust them.  It was too late now to let fear and self-doubt affect her.

When Jack finished brushing out her fur, Skye fetched the garment bag she’d brought with, and unzipped it, revealing the tailored dress.  It was a light blue fabric, and as Skye pulled it out of the bag Judy found herself pleased by it.    It took no time to get it on properly, Skye helping her get it on and Jack adjusting it in places.  They both smiled at her.

“Nick’s going to have a heart attack, my love,” Jack said dryly to Skye.

Skye chuckled.  “He’ll live.”  She turned Judy around to face her full-length mirror, and Judy was stunned. 

The dress was light, the blue fabric not quite sheer, showing a hint of the grey fur underneath.  The lines were gracefully cut, the mid shin length skirt flared and lightly pleated in a way reminiscent of fox kilts, and the upper portion hugged her narrow torso in a pleasing way.  The neck line was low, showing off Judy’s upper chest, and the dress was backless from her shoulders all the way down to her tail.

Despite herself, Judy smiled, enchanted.  She liked how she looked, and was surprised at how well the dress accented her natural curves.  She stared silently for a long moment.

“I take it back,” said Judy finally, trailing her paws lightly down her front.  “This is definitely the right thing to do.  How long do we have?”

Jack pulled out a pocket watch and checked it.  “Ten minutes.  Just enough time to get upstairs and get to the ceremony.  They should be set up by now.”

“Jack,” said Skye with a look, “don’t forget the other thing.”

The pale rabbit stared at Skye for a moment blankly, then realization crossed his face.  “Ah.  Right.  Thank you, my love.  What would I do without you?”  He went to his bag as Skye rolled her eyes at him and drew from it a delicate looking box.  Jack brought it to Judy, opened it, and pulled out a circlet of braided dogwood, dotted with wildflower blossoms.

“That’s pretty,” said Judy, taking it when it was offered to her.

“I made it for you,” replied Jack.  “I thought it would complement the whole ensemble.”

Judy smiled, then carefully fitted the circlet over her ears around the crown of her skull.  When she looked in the mirror again, her smile widened.  “Yep.  Nick’s definitely going to have a heart attack.”

Skye chuckled.  “Not if we don’t make it to the grounds on time.  Let’s get going.”  The trio turned and went out of the room.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure I can’t wear a kilt?”  Nick was frowning at his reflection in Stu and Bonnie’s room, his tail wrapped around his waist.  He was distinctly aware of his state of undress, and the audience he had.

Bonnie chuckled and patted him on the arm.  “You’ll be fine, Nick.  It’s not like the whole family is attending the ceremony.  Judy has to do this your way so you get to do it our way.”

“She’s doing it my way?  What do you mean?” 

Stu handed Bonnie a fur brush and pushed Nick toward the stool in the room.  “Sit down so Bon can brush you.  Judy’s going to be wearing a vixen dress.  I’m told your mom is making it for her.”

Nick sat, and his ears turned pink in a blush.  “What, really?  I um…oh.”  He hadn’t expected Judy to agree to that; she was quite adamant about how much it meant when she explained the nudity-at-weddings thing to him.  The idea of her in a dress at all was hard to imagine.

As Bonnie started pulling the brush through Nick’s fur, he started a bit.  “Wait, why are you brushing me?”

“It’s a tradition,” said Bonnie.  “Your fiancé’s opposite-sex parent brushes out your fur to make you look presentable.  Allowing them to groom you shows your willingness to trust them.”

“Seems…intimate.”  It was clear in his voice that Nick was of two minds on the matter.

“It’s supposed to be,” said Stu, who was standing in front of Nick.  “Rabbits are very affectionate creatures, you know this.”

“Alright,” sighed Nick.  “But not the tail.  That…that’s something I’m not going to compromise on.  A fox doesn’t let anyone touch his tail, except his mate.  That’s like…like kissing.  It’s incredibly intimate.”

“Crackers,” muttered Bonnie in disappointment.  “I’ve always wanted to touch your tail.  This is definitely a pleasure though.  You know your fur is almost as soft as rabbit fur?”

“I can tell you like it,” said Nick dryly, tapping his nose.  Stu snorted.  “But yeah, once you get to our undercoats you can definitely tell we have soft fur.  Most don’t realize that.”

Bonnie finished brushing out Nick’s upper body, so he stood. 

“I’m a little nervous,” said Nick.  “I feel like I’m getting more than I deserve in this arrangement.  Like, Judy shouldn’t want _me_ , she should want someone more…better.”

Stu reached out and thumped him on his nose.  “You stop that, now.  Look what you’ve done in the last few years.  I understand you have a rough past, but you’ve made something of yourself.  You’re a respected police officer, and you work with the best of the best in Zootopia.  You have no idea how thrilled we are that you and Judy are so close.”

Bonnie patted his side, indicating she was done brushing.  “I have to admit, part of why we’re so happy about all this is…Judy has someone to protect her.  Someone bigger than her who can defend her.”

“Bonnie,” said Nick patiently, “your daughter defends _me_ more than I ever defend _her_.  Not to say I can’t, or that I’m not willing to, but that bunny is more resilient than most officers she works with.”

“We know that,” said Stu, “but we’re parents.  We worry.  And…well, can you imagine how many criminals would decide she’s not worth attacking if she’s got a big, strong, scary fox with her.”

“Oh so I’m scary, am I?”  Nick feigned insult.

“Have you seen yourself?”  Stu glanced at his clock, then opened the top drawer of his dresser, reaching in to grab something.  “You’re four feet tall.  And your teeth are huge.  You’re the stuff of nightmares, you know.”

“Oh good,” said Nick.  “At least people dream about me.”

Stu went back to Nick and held out an object to him:  some kind of wooden crown with flowers.  Nick tilted his head in confusion.

“It’s a willow circlet,” explained Bonnie.  “I made it from fresh vines cut from the willow in the playground behind the house, and wildflowers grown in the garden.”

Nick took it and gingerly laid it on his head, then admired himself in the mirror with a goofy smile.  “I feel like a Disney princess!  Now I just need a dress.  Bonnie, can I borrow one of your dresses?”

“You’re too fat for my dresses,” snarked Bonnie dryly. 

“Well, it’s your fault.  You’re the one who keeps feeding me criminally delicious food every time I come here.  You’ve shot my figure, Bonnie Hopps.”

“Fattening you up for the slaughter, son.”  Stu tapped his wrist.  “We’re out of time.  They should be set up by now, and we’re scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes.  We need to get up there.”

They began walking out.

“You know, it’ll be strange having the Hopps name,” remarked Nick absently.

“What do you mean?” asked Bonnie.

“Foxes are matrilineal,” said Nick as they mounted the stairs.  “When a tod marries a vixen, he takes her name.  I understand rabbits are different, but Judy wanted me to follow the fox way with that.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Bonnie.  “Well, I didn’t expect that.  I assumed Judy would take your name.”

Stu, who was bringing up the rear, smiled conspiratorially where the other two couldn’t see him.

The marriage ceremony was to be performed on the Hopps property, in a clearing of grass near the home that was usually used for sports games.  Now, it was cleared of any sporting equipment and a circle of a dozen unlit tiki torches twenty feet across surrounded the space where people were gathered.  There would be a dozen mammals there in addition to Nick and Judy, six from each of their families. 

As Nick had only two family members remaining, he’d reached out to Finnick and the officers of the ZPD to stand with him.  As he and Bonnie and Stu approached, he could see the officers that had come for him, all wearing their dress blues:  Clawhauser, the first to decide the pair needed to be together.  Wolford, the timber wolf with whom Nick had become friendly.  And Chief Bogo, who had requested Nick’s assignment to Precinct One.

Standing for Judy were four of her siblings:  her younger brother David, an albino doe whose name was Alice, Judy’s brother Cole, and the melanistic doe Susan, who gave Nick a wink as he entered the circle.  Each of the witnesses was standing at a torch with a long match in hand, and they alternated going around the circle, no two witnesses for one family next to each other.  As Stu and Nick went to the center of the circle where a pillar candle and two taper candles were sitting on a pedestal, Bonnie took a match from Susan and took her place at one of the torches. 

“Okay,” said Stu checking his watch, “the others will be here in a few minutes.  Now, when they get here your parents will take their places around the circle and Judy will wait outside it.  That’s when we’ll begin.”

Nick nodded and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.  He was still nervous, but when he gazed around at those around him their encouraging looks gave him strength.

A few moments later, Skye and Jack approached the circle, with Judy obscured behind them.  They parted as they entered the circle and Jack took his place in the circle while Skye aside, revealing Judy in all her glory.  Nick’s heart skipped a beat and he swallowed heavily as he saw her.  The dress was cut perfectly to accentuate her natural curves, and it was just sheer enough to hint at the supple flesh underneath.  Coupled with the small smile across her face, Judy was quite striking indeed.

Stu stepped over next to Nick in the center, and when he spoke, it was strong and loud enough for all to hear.  “As the oldest able-bodied Hopps, it falls to me to perform this ceremony.  I present Nicholas Wilde, who would take my daughter as his wife.  I have inspected him and deemed him worthy.”

Skye, at the edge of the circle and standing next to Judy, spoke next.  “As the oldest able-bodied Wilde, I too have responsibility here.  I present Judith Hopps, who would take my son as her husband.  I have inspected her and I deem her worthy.

“Nicholas, you may have your love…if you can catch her.”

The moment Skye stopped speaking and moved to the center of the circle with Stu, Judy’s smile turned to a wide, playful grin, and she turned on her heel and started sprinting clockwise round the circle.  Nick was _supposed_ to exit the circle where Judy had been standing…but he was a sly fox, and he changed the script, leaping across to the left instead, narrowly missing colliding with Judy as she ran past.  Judy squealed in surprise and kept running as Nick chased her.  Nick was a strong runner, but had never managed to outrun his partner; it was a good thing then that Judy went easy on  him, slowing just enough as she completed her first circuit to let Nick catch up to her and grab her from behind, wrapping his arms round her and lifting her up.

She laughed out loud, a happy sound, and Nick carried her into the circle.  As he carefully set her on her feet next to the pedestal, Nick let himself chuckle through his panting.

Stu, who was grinning at him like an idiot, shook his head.  “You’ve caught her, and proven yourself capable.  Now, we will hear your vows.”

Nick took a breath, turned to Judy, and spoke with strength and feeling.  “I spent a long time alone.  That’s normal for foxes, but I’ve always been different.  I’ve always wanted to be part of a pack.  I always wanted friends.  I’d given up on that when I met you, but you led me to realize a dream:  I became a police officer, and I was part of Bogo’s Pack.  I had friends.  And now you’ve invited me to take it a step further, and join your family.  I will bring everything I have and honor the family you’ve offered me.  I offer my love, and my devotion, and my strength to you.  I promise you everything I have.  A second time, I swear to give you all I possess.  And a third time, I vow that you have my heart and my soul forever.”  He lit one of the taper candles on the pedestal.

Stu punctuated the act with a hearty sniff.

Judy began speaking now, her voice confident.  “I’ve always had family, but I’ve stood alone.  My dreams made me different, and my difference pushed me away from those around me.  I couldn’t learn from them, because I couldn’t understand them.  So I was led to you.  And you showed me that I had more to learn.  You helped me see my flaws and begin to repair them.  And while I struggled to do that, I began to understand that you were special.  Uniquely fitting to be at my side.  You’ve always been alone and wanted a crowd; I’ve always been in a crowd, but standing alone.  Together, we can balance each other.  We can continue to learn and grow as partners.  You’re the only one worthy of my attention; you stand above the rest.  I promise you my love and fidelity.  Twice, I swear to share myself only with you.  And three times, I vow to give myself to you completely, forever.”  She lit her own taper, and they both lifted the candles before them.

They spoke in one voice, touching the candle flames to each other, lighting the pillar candle.  “As the flames of our candles join into one, we forge our souls together.  Stronger, larger, greater than the sum of its parts.”

Stu cleared his throat, then touched his match to the joined flame, lighting the slender bit of wood.  Then he went to his torch at the head of the circle.  “I accept this union with no reservation.  With the flame of their love, I light my torch, and may all see my support.”  He touched the flame to his torch, lighting it.  Then he reached over clockwise to Finnick, letting the desert fox light his own match with the same flame.

“I accept the union,” said Finnick.  “It’s ‘bout time you found someone, idiot.”  He lit his torch. Then David followed suit, taking the flame from Finnick, and Clawhauser after that, and Cole, and then Jack and Susan and Bogo (who had trouble speaking due to his tears) and Bonnie.  Finally, the flame reached Skye, standing at the last torch next to Stu. 

“The joined fire has gone round the circle,” the pale vixen said, “and has reached me.  I’ve seen no couple better suited for each other.  I close this circle of fire; may your love follow suit, and endure a day, and a year, and a lifetime.”

Then Bonnie stepped to the center of the circle with Jack, and she drew a narrow felt cord of grey-speckled orange from her pocket.  “Samantha made this cord with fur shed from both your coats; the blended fur represents your new lives together.”  She took Judy’s left paw and Nick’s right, placed them together, and wrapped the cord three times around them.

Jack took the ends of the cord in his paws and tied a knot, binding them together.  “I bond you as one.  May you endure, forever and a day.”

This would be Stu’s cue to tell them to complete the ritual, but it took him a moment to stop crying.  Thankfully, everyone was patient and understanding.

Finally, Stu was composed enough to speak.  “I declare you Nicholas Piberius Hopps and Judith Laverne Wilde…husband and wife.  You may kiss.”

And they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Samantha didn't attend the wedding because while she loves her sister and wants to support them, she's still not quite ready to take such a public step in favor of foxes. She compromised by making the felt cord that would bind their paws.
> 
> Yes, Judy proposed to Nick with a ring. I didn't address this in the story, so let me say it here: Foxes use rings to signify marriage; bunnies do not. He still has his dad's ring, and will wear it, but neither felt the need to get Judy a ring to match.
> 
> The next chapter, IF I post it, will be an explicit finale detailing their wedding night. Just wanted to warn you ahead of time.
> 
> Once again, I'd like to thank Selaxes for helping me nail down how I wanted to do this chapter. He provided some suggestions that definitely helped, such as the blended-fur cord. Thanks, buddy.


	10. The Joining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ** _WARNING:_** This chapter is very explicit.

The wedding proper was followed by a reception complete with dancing, boisterous storytelling, wine, and food of all possible kinds brought in by everyone involved.  Nick and Judy held the first dance (and their first dance ever, for that matter) at the beginning, paws still bound by the felt cord, and then as soon as Nick could convince his new wife to let them they retreated from the dance floor and got a bit of food and a spot of wine.  At some point someone had given Nick a kilt to put on now that the ceremony proper was over, but it was all he wore:  his chest was yet bared, the ruff of cream fur on his front still nicely brushed even after who knew how long of dancing.

Nick had been nursing a glass of blueberry wine for some minutes, and was just finishing it when Bonnie and Stu broke off from the festivities and approached them.

“Great wine,” said Nick before they could speak.

“Glad you like it,” replied Bonnie.  “Stu made it a couple years ago, we’re sending a bottle home with you.”

“About that.”  Judy, next to Nick and leaning into him, squirmed a bit in her seat.  “Is there any way—“

“Yes,” interrupted Stu, raising a paw to forestall further comment.  “That’s why we came over.  Everyone here knows you guys want to be alone, and nobody will mind if you slip away.  Your things are ready, Skye took care of the train tickets, and Susan is going to drive you to the station.  She’s already back at the house waiting for you.”

“We assumed you’d want to be _home_ for your first night together, instead of in a guest room.”  Bonnie smiled at them.

“That…yes.  Actually,” grinned Nick.  “That’s very sweet of you guys.”

“What about the reception?” asked Judy.

Stu snorted.  “By the time you leave our little gathering of two dozen is going to include most of your adult siblings and some of your aunts and uncles.  Don’t worry, nobody will mind you escaping the madness.  You guys go on.  You’ve a train to catch.”

The newlyweds stood and took it in turns to hug the older bunnies.  Then Bonnie cleared her throat and nudged Stu significantly, who looked back at her blankly.

Then he started.  “Oh! Right.  Um…Nick.  I’ve invited your parents to stay for a couple days.  We thought it would be nice to uh…”  He cleared his throat.  “ _Get to know them_ a bit better.  If that’s okay.”

Judy snorted and tried very hard to stifle a loud giggle while Nick stared at Stu like he’d been hit with a brick.

“What?” said Stu defensively.  “Skye is _hot_.  And I saw Bonnie eyeing that Officer Savage.  Good looking buck, I admit.  You know I have a brother, actually, who tried to join the ZIA—“

“Stu.”  Bonnie cut him off gently.  “They don’t need to hear about your brother.”

Stu cleared his throat again.  “Right.  Sorry.”

Nick finally gathered his wits again.  “Uh…well, they’re adults.  They can make their own decisions.  Just, you know…be nice,” he finished lamely.  Nick was certainly unaccustomed to this aspect of the bunny culture, and had no idea how to move on from here.

Judy rescued him, thankfully.  “That’s that, then.  I love you guys.  Tell everyone I said goodbye?”  The parents nodded and smiled and Judy pulled Nick toward the house, away from the crowd. 

They were intercepted by Nick’s parents, who were paw in paw.

“Can’t leave without saying bye to us,” chided Skye with a smile.  “Did Bonnie and Stu explain our arrangement?”

“Yep,” said Nick brightly.  “They mentioned it.  No need for you to go into it.”

Jack chuckled.  “Same old Nicky.”  He stepped forward and pulled Nick into a tight hug.  Nick returned the hug with his free paw.  After a long moment, they broke apart and Jack sniffed a bit.  “Proud of you, son.  Go home, seal the deal.”

Skye put a paw on Jack’s shoulder and looked at the newlyweds.  “If you need anything….”

“We’ll call,” said Judy.  She pulled Nick toward the house.  “Take care!”

They got half way to the house before they both started giggling at the same time. 

“I wonder how many others are going to stop us on our way out?”  Judy looked at Nick, a mixture of lust and amusement in her violet eyes. 

“Hopefully nobody,” said Nick.  “I bet Samantha will, though.”  They entered the house via the back door leading into the kitchen and found Susan and Samantha talking quietly across the counter.  Sam looked up as the newlyweds entered, her eyes flickered to the cord still binding them together, and she smiled slightly.

“We’ll finish talking when you get back, Sue,” said Sam, standing up from the bar stool.  “Congratulations, guys.”  She turned and left the room.

“Is she okay?” asked Judy.

Susan nodded.  “Sure.  The divorce was finalized yesterday, is all.  She’ll be fine.”

“Divorce?” Nick looked at Judy, then back at Susan with a puzzled look.

Judy shook her head.  “I’ll explain later.  Are we ready?”

Susan nodded.  “Your stuff’s in the car already.  Let’s go.”

The ride was quiet; Susan, it seemed, thought it prudent to let the couple cuddle and snuggle in the back seat in peace, and the couple certainly appreciated her discretion.  Once they got to the station and Nick tossed a shirt on, they untied the cord binding them, stowed it in Judy’s bag, and hugged Susan.

“Take care of each other,” said the black-furred doe as they pulled apart.  “Don’t be a stranger.”

“You know me,” said Judy.  “Bye!”

Then they were on the train, speeding toward their new life.  There were looks given by other passengers, but neither noticed.  Judy spent the trip snuggled into Nick’s side, and he spent the trip with his arm around her, gazing down at her lovingly.

 

* * *

 

Over the last week, Judy and Nick had finalized the paperwork for their move into the new apartment and had moved their stuff into it, but they hadn’t had the opportunity to actually sleep in the new place yet.  By the time their stuff was moved in they were scheduled to go to Bunnyburrow, and this was the first time they’d been inside since.

It was a decent apartment.  No windows, as it was located on the bottom floor of a mostly-underground building, but the tan walls and hardwood floors of the two bedroom place were well worth the sacrifice.  They’d claimed the larger room, of course, leaving the other as either a spare room or an office.

None of this was on their minds as they banged the door open, slammed it shut, and left their luggage in the entry hall to deal with later.  No, what was on Nick’s mind was the strong scent reminiscent of sweetgrass which he’d come to associate with Judy’s arousal.  And it was clear, with her lewd glances at him, that she was doing nothing to keep her thoughts from exacerbating the issue.  Rather, Judy seized Nick’s paw and dragged him toward the bedroom.

He didn’t resist.  In fact, Nick grinned widely, baring his teeth, and lifted Judy—still in that dashing blue gown—bodily off her feet, carrying her bridal style into the bedroom.  Her response was a surprised squeal and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

When they reached the bed, Nick gently set her down at the edge of it, and placed a soft kiss at her neck.  “I was thinking of tossing you into it but I thought that would be cliché,” he said softly.

“Would have been fun, though,” Judy shot back.  She turned on the bed to face him and grabbed his shirt to pull him down, planting a kiss on his muzzle.  “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Nick gazed at her for a moment, and drew in a breath.

Judy frowned.  “What is it?”

Nick smiled sheepishly.  “I’m worried about hurting you.  Our size difference is…we should take it slow.”

Judy scoffed, and started pulling his shirt over his head.  “Nick, sweetie, my love, when I decided I wanted to join the ZPD I spent every day preparing for it.  You don’t really think I figured out you turned me on…and just didn’t do anything, do you?”

Nick helped her get his shirt off, and let her cast it away, then drew her to her feet so he could help her out of the dress.  “I admit, Carrots, I should have realized that.  But how would you have prepared?”

Judy stepped out of the dress and carefully laid it on the dresser.  She was still wearing black yoga shorts and a tight tank top.  She gave Nick a wicked look.  “It wasn’t complicated, Slick.  I bought a toy.  Anatomically correct, complete with inflatable knot.”

Nick blinked at her impotently as she approached him.  Her fingers on the ties of his kilt drew him out of it.  “They…they _sell_ those?!”

Judy laughed and planted her face into his stomach.  “Oh Nick, you poor pure thing.”

“Pure, huh?”  Nick batted her paws away from his kilt and lifted her up, only to deposit her on the bed.  He crawled on all fours over her and lightly nibbled on her throat, letting his teeth pinch gently into the flesh; this caused Judy to inhale sharply.

“Mmm.  Do it again!”

Her groan of disappointment when Nick pulled away was quickly replaced with a squeak of excitement as he drew the yoga shorts down and off, revealing the lacy black panties beneath.  He inhaled deeply, taking in the strong, rich scent of her arousal, and trailed his paws up her narrow torso underneath the shirt, bunching the fabric up as he went, until the shirt too was off the bunny underneath him, baring her almost fully to him. 

Nick gazed hungrily at her.  The pale fur of her belly was soft, her torso narrow and lightly muscled, going down to flared hips and powerful legs.  She was beautiful, and she was _his_.

She shuddered as he dragged his claws gently down her body, arching her chest into his touch.

“Nick,” she purred, shifting underneath her. 

His eyes flicked up to hers, saw how steadily she gazed at him, open and utterly trusting and desperately longing for more.

He closed the distance between them, one paw trailing grazing patterns in her side with claws and the other cupped her face.  Their lips met and fire sparked between them as Judy opened her mouth to him, flicking her tongue over his fangs when he followed suit.  They kissed for minutes, tongues dancing and flirting with grazes and licks, until finally, panting, Judy pushed Nick away, quivering. 

“Enough foreplay.”

“Are you sure?” said Nick, lightly scratching her along the twin lines of nipples gracing her chest.

“ _Nick_ ,” panted Judy, grabbing his paw. 

Nick chuckled, but he stopped the scratching.  Instead, he drew her panties—now visibly sopping—down and off.  Judy spread her legs for him eagerly, and he lowered his muzzle to her groin to lick once broadly up the delicate folds.  Judy moaned aloud, as good an invitation to continue as any he’d heard.  The taste of her was strong and sweet, and as Nick’s tongue explored deeper and deeper into her he drank in the flavor and smell of her pleasure.

Judy was not quiet under him, either, each powerful lick sending an electric pulse through her.  She clutched at the sheets as the pleasure built, a pressure in her core that desperately needed release.  Then Nick growled, a sound of delight and raw passion punctuating the almost feral way pushed his tongue and snout into her heat, and the bestial sound drove her over the edge.  She let out a wordless yell as her muscles locked down shook her, waves of hot ecstasy washing over her.  He kept licking, kept probing as deeply as he could, until her paws—which had grabbed Nick about his ears and pulled him into her even more tightly of their own accord—relaxed, and she gasped for breath.

Nick laid on his side next to her and smirked while she came down from the rush.

“Fertility help me,” panted Judy at long last.  “I love that tongue.”

The smirk widened.  “There’s more where that came from.”

Judy giggled.  “Your muzzle is soaked.”  Without giving him time to respond, she drew his face to hers and licked the fluids from his snout, then deeply kissed him.

Nick returned the kiss eagerly, but it lasted only a moment before Judy pushed him to his back and quickly removed the kilt blocking her from him.

“My turn,” said the bunny with a purr.  Judy straddled his legs and gently caressed the length of his erection, grinning when it twitched.  “I missed the show, I wanted to see it come out of the sheath.”

“Your fault,” snarked Nick.  “Your scent does things to me, woman.”

Judy stuck her tongue out at him, then gripped him softly around the base.  She inhaled deeply, taking in the musk coming off him, and pressed a gentle kiss to the hot flesh just above her paw where his member was already starting to swell slightly.  Just that simple action caused Nick to inhale, and Judy pressed another, suckling lightly, above the first, and then again leaving a trail of kisses all the way to the tip, where she lapped up a bead of leaking precum.  Finally, she went back to the base and drew her tongue up the underside in one long lick before taking the head into her mouth.

Nick groaned as the tip and upper portion of his shaft was taken into Judy’s mouth where it was tantalized by her tongue and a light suction.  “Holy hell, Carrots, I thought you were new at this.”  His voice was somewhat breathy. 

Judy withdrew a little, took a breath through her nose, then pulled him into her mouth again, flicking her tongue around the underside, and repeated this again, and again; he began to swell in her paws and she hummed with the pleasure of it, sending vibrations through his groin.  The swelling knot cued her to his imminent orgasm at the same moment as his breathless warning, and she pulled away from him leaving only the tip of him in her mouth as he moaned aloud with a growl and erupted.

She swallowed with each spurt, lightly squeezing his knot in rhythm, while Nick shuddered and sank his claws into the mattress.

Finally the spasms ceased, and Judy licked her lips, looking up at Nick.  “That was _quick_.”

Nick looked down at her, saw her sly grin, and chuckled.  “I’m a virgin, leave me alone!”

“You _were_ a virgin, five minutes ago.”  Judy crawled up his body to straddle his midsection and kissed him lightly on the side of the muzzle.  “Not like I fared much better anyway, so I can’t say much.”

“I wasn’t going to say it,” smiled Nick, still panting lightly. 

When he caught his breath, she kissed him more properly, and was delighted when he didn’t balk at his taste in her mouth; rather, he seemed more eager than ever to enthusiastically join in the kiss.

She pulled back after a moment though with a frown.  “You’re a little bigger than I thought you would be.  I couldn’t get as much of you in my mouth as I wanted.”

Nick stared up at her for a moment, then snorted.  “Carrots, sweetheart, you don’t need to feel self-conscious about that.”

“…are you sure?”

Nick pulled her back to him, pressed a kiss to her lips.  “Yes, I’m sure. You’re _great_ , don’t worry about it.”

He saw the debate in her eyes, and he saw the precise moment she decided he was right. 

“Good.”  Judy snapped forward and bit him hard at the very base of the neck, drawing a groan from Nick and causing his toes to curl a little.  She moved down to sit over his groin and grinned when she found he was ready to go again already.  Judy rolled her hips a bit, sliding her dripping slit along his length, and they both sighed in pleasure at the simple action.  So she repeated it, moving slower, more deliberately.  And a third time she slid herself up his shaft, and rolled her hips forward just a little more to nestle his tip at the very outermost reaches of her entrance; here she stopped and gazed down at Nick with her eyes blazing.

“Only if you’re ready,” she said, her soft voice at odds with the passion in her eyes.

Nick’s only hesitation was to swallow heavily, and he nodded.  “I was pretty much born ready for you.”  It was meant to be snarky, but it came out with a serious tone.  He reached for her, and she reached back, lacing their fingers together, Judy bracing herself against the strength of his arms.  She hesitated only a moment longer, searching his eyes and finding only passion and adoration.

So she brought herself back down, engulfing almost his entire length in one go.

“Oh!” they gasped together.  Judy raised herself a little more and pushed back down to take him a little deeper, and again, until finally he was completely sheathed inside her.

There they rested for a moment, Judy adjusting to his size and Nick basking in the heat around him.  Nick stared open-mouthed at the point where their bodies joined, and Judy gazed down at him.

When Judy grinded into him without lifting her hips, she exhaled sharply and Nick moaned, moving his hips with hers.  They continued to move with each other, slowly increasing the speed of their gyrations, until at last they once again neared climax.  Nick lifted his head and captured Judy’s mouth with his, letting her grip the fur of his chest as she worked herself around his shaft, and they kissed deeply, passionately, for a minute.  Their panting got in the way, and soon fox and bunny both were lost to the sensations joining them.

As Judy crested a second time she shoved herself down as deeply on him as she could.  She clenched her paws so tightly some of his fur came out in her fingers, and the yell she let out was unrestrained.  Nick felt her tightening almost painfully like a vice in pulses around him; just the knowledge of what was happening was enough to bring him close to his own orgasm, but then Judy spoke through the haze of the waves of pleasure washing over her.

“ _I love you_ ,” she whimpered, voice raw with emotion and eyes wet with tears.

Nick bucked and groaned as he came, pulsing into her and swelling at his base.  Judy collapsed on his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.

“I love you too,” whispered Nick, his voice rough.

Judy hummed into his chest for a moment.  Then after a moment her paws clenched again.

“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes wide.  “Oh Fertility….”  She squeezed her eyes shut, and it took Nick no effort to understand what was wrong:  his knot was reaching its largest size and, still inside Judy, was becoming painful even for him.  Judy panted in discomfort.

“I can try to—“ started Nick, moving to roll them over.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” breathed Judy quickly.  “I’m fine.  This is fine.  Gimme a minute to adjust.”

Nick stopped, but he stroked her back along her spine while she panted shallowly into his chest.

Finally, after a minute or so, her breathing slowed and she squeezed around him, making him jump.  She giggled in response.

“You alright there, Fluff?”  Nick’s pleasure-smeared voice was colored with concern, but she simply hummed in pleasure.

“Yep,” she said, popping the p.  “I’m just _fine_ , Mr. Hopps.  Told you I just needed a minute.” 

Nick kissed the top of her head in reply, and continued to stroke her back.  After a moment she began to trace patterns in his fur and occasionally placed kisses along his chest.

It took fifteen minutes more for Nick’s knot to deflate enough for them to separate, but when they did they continued laying together for another few minutes.

Finally, Judy groaned.  “We need to hydrate.  And I’m starving.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Nick, continuing to pet her back.

Judy rolled off him, laid on her back for a moment to gather her senses, then stood on wobbly legs next to the bed and snatched her panties from the ground, pulling them on to cover her sex.

“Don’t you want to wash up before putting clothes on?”

“Nope.”  Judy made her way across the room wearing just her panties.  “I want you in me.  I like it.  We can shower later.  I’m gonna go call a pizza, and then we can think about round two.”

Nick let her go without protest, and slung an arm over his face with a groan.  He had a distinct feeling his wife was going to kill him.

Either that or he’d be a very happy fox for a very long time.  You know, one or the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....that happened. Before you start criticizing my work please note that this is only the second explicit thing I've ever written so be gentle okay? Anyway, that's the end of this story. I'm already planning a sequel set a couple years later, and we'll get to that in time. I also have something of a prequel I'm considering, a prompt from one of my readers. That might take some time, but we'll get to it. 
> 
> You guys...smut is _DIFFICULT_ to write. Seriously. Good god. I've never put in that much effort in any writing I've ever done. I'm glad to have done it though. Onward and upward.


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